Memoir Manifesto by Deb Olin Unferth Guest editor Deb Olin Unferth offers insights into the art of the memoir and introduces the present and future stars of the genre. Photograph via Flickr by Alice Carrier Let’s have no more insults hurled at the memoir, shall we? A few years ago, when I began writing a memoir, I read piles of them to get a feel for the genre. In the final decades of the twentieth century, the autobiography transformed, as writers began to see the disadvantages of writing blanket summaries of their lives and comprehensive lists of events: the messiness involved in such a project, the inevitable incompleteness, the necessary lack of an arc (if one was going to be honest). Then we begin to see the pivotal classics, such as Michael Ondaatje’s Running in the Family (1982), Tobias Wolff’s This Boy’s Life (1989), Mary Karr’s The Liars’ Club (1995). When Meakin Armstrong of Guernica brought up the possibility of my guest-editing a section, I immediately knew what I wanted to do: a section on innovative memoir.
Che cos'é la comunicazione multimediale - Nicola Amato Web Page Quando parliamo di multimedialità ci riferiamo alla compresenza e interazione di più mezzi di comunicazione in uno stesso supporto informativo. Si parla di contenuti multimediali , specie in ambito informatico, quando per comunicare un'informazione riguardo a qualcosa ci si avvale di molti media, diversi tra loro, quali possono essere le immagini in movimento di un video, le immagini statiche delle fotografie, la musica e il testo; i nuovi media insomma. Ad esempio, un' enciclopedia multimediale, come può essere la famosissima “Wikipedia” su Internet, a differenza di una normale enciclopedia cartacea, permette di associare ad ogni voce non solo la sua spiegazione testuale, ma anche fotografie, disegni esplicativi, filmati, suoni, commenti audio, etc. Concetti molto legati alla comunicazione multimediale sono quelli dell'interattività e dell'ipertestualità, che andremo a vedere nei prossimi paragrafi. Multimedialità e interattività Ma vediamo meglio di che cosa si tratta. Ipermedialità
Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing Never open a book with weather. If it’s only to create atmosphere, and not a character’s reaction to the weather, you don’t want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. Avoid prologues. They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword. There is a prologue in John Steinbeck’s Sweet Thursday, but it’s O.K. because a character in the book makes the point of what my rules are all about. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said” … …he admonished gravely. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.” This rule doesn’t require an explanation. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters. Which Steinbeck covered.
Snoopy's Guide to the Writing Life: Ray Bradbury on Creative Purpose in the Face of Rejection by Maria Popova “The blizzard doesn’t last forever; it just seems so.” Famous advice on writing abounds — Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 tips on how to make a great story, David Ogilvy’s 10 no-bullshit tips, Henry Miller’s 11 commandments, Jack Kerouac’s 30 beliefs and techniques, John Steinbeck’s 6 pointers, and various invaluable insight from other great writers. The amazing Blackstone came to town when I was seven, and I saw how he came alive onstage and thought, God, I want to grow up to be like that! What a fine complement to this recent omnibus of wisdom on how to find your purpose and do what you love. Donating = Loving Bringing you (ad-free) Brain Pickings takes hundreds of hours each month. You can also become a one-time patron with a single donation in any amount: Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter. Share on Tumblr
'The Black Dog' by W. H. C. Pynchon The Dog, J. Laurent, 1874. From Archivo Ruiz Vernacci, Fototeca del IPCE, Madrid. by W. “And if a man shall meet the Black Dog once it shall be for joy; and if twice, it shall be for sorrow; and the third time he shall die.” In a corner of our country not far removed from two of its great cities, there is a low range of mountains, the hoary evidences of ancient volcanic action. The West Peak stands at an angle of the range. It was late in the spring of 18— that I visited West Peak for the first time. The old horse knew that he was bound for home and he took the road at a very good gait. And this is how I met the Black Dog the first time—for joy. I don’t know just how we came to do it. We talked till late that night, and, as the fire died down to a mass of glowing embers, he told me how he himself had twice seen a black dog upon the mountain, but he laughed at the legend, saying that he did not believe in omens unless they were lucky ones. “I did not believe it before. Transcriber’s note:
Scrivere per il web Anche nella comunicazione di impresa ogni strumento deve avere il suo linguaggio. Scrivere un discorso è diverso da scrivere una brochure. Scrivere il bilancio annuale della società è diverso da scrivere una presentazione o un documento tecnico. Ma nel caso della scrittura online è tutto molto più complicato, perché Internet si evolve in continuazione e non si fa in tempo ad elaborare non tanto delle regole quanto delle idee, che queste sono già superate. A lungo, la scrittura è stata la vera cenerentola di Internet, stretta da una parte dalla programmazione e dalla tecnica, dall'altra dal predominio della grafica. Eppure imparare a scrivere per il web è particolarmente importante e urgente.
H. P. Lovecraft’s Advice to Aspiring Writers, 1920 by Maria Popova “A page of Addison or of Irving will teach more of style than a whole manual of rules, whilst a story of Poe’s will impress upon the mind a more vivid notion of powerful and correct description and narration than will ten dry chapters of a bulky textbook.” “If there is a magic in story writing,” admonished Henry Miller, “and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another.” And yet, famous advice on writing abounds. In January of 1920, iconic science fiction and fantasy author H. P. Much like Jennifer Egan did nearly a century later, Lovecraft stresses the vital osmosis between reading and writing: No aspiring author should content himself with a mere acquisition of technical rules. … All attempts at gaining literary polish must begin with judicious reading, and the learner must never cease to hold this phase uppermost. Lovecraft notes the equal importance of non-reading as intellectual choice:
Six Tips on Writing from John Steinbeck By Maria Popova If this is indeed the year of reading more and writing better, we’ve been right on course with David Ogilvy’s 10 no-nonsense tips, Henry Miller’s 11 commandments, and various invaluable advice from other great writers. Now comes Pulitzer Prize winner and Nobel laureate John Steinbeck (February 27, 1902–December 20, 1968) with six tips on writing, originally set down in a 1962 letter to the actor and writer Robert Wallsten included in Steinbeck: A Life in Letters (public library) — the same magnificent volume that gave us Steinbeck’s advice on falling in love. Steinbeck counsels: Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. But perhaps most paradoxically yet poetically, twelve years prior — in 1963, immediately after receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature “for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception” — Steinbeck issued a thoughtful disclaimer to all such advice: ↬ Open Culture
Web Film & Video: Georges Perec - Récits d'Ellis Island, Part 1: Traces (1978-1980) Duration: 60 minutes Part 1: Traces Part 2: Mémoires, 60 min Produced by: Institut National d'Archives (INA) Written by: Georges Perec Directed by: Robert Bober Sound: Jean-Claude Brisson In 1978, Robert Bober and Georges Perec set out to in the search of traces of Ellis Island, that is, as Georges Perec put it, of "the very site of exile, the place of the absence of place, the non-place, the nowhere." They traveled to New York to film what was left of this "Golden Gate", nicknamed "the Island of Tears" by the immigrants. One of the objectives of the filmmaker and the writer was to gather testimonies of survivors who, as children, passed through Ellis Island. However, they also wanted to understand how and why they both felt that this place concerned them personally. Georges Perec in UbuWeb Sound
L’allegra confusione dei racconti Josh Rolnick, The Millions, Stati Uniti Non sono uno di quegli scrittori che hanno sempre voluto fare lo scrittore. Chiedetelo a mia madre: io volevo diventare un entomologo. “Allora”, disse l’agente, “i suoi racconti mi piacciono. Sta lavorando a un romanzo?”. Ero seduto nella prestigiosa Dey House, l’ottocentesca sede vittoriana dell’Iowa writers’ workshop, davanti a un agente letterario, il quinto o il sesto da quando ero arrivato ad Iowa City. Me l’aspettavo, quella domanda. No, pensai, guardandola dall’altra parte della scrivania, non ce l’ho un romanzo. Lei inarcò le sopracciglia: “Continua”. Tutto qui. Non sono, però, uno di quegli scrittori che hanno sempre voluto fare lo scrittore. Feci domanda per lavorare al Daily Targum, il giornale studentesco. Seduto da solo alle cinque di mattina con una merendina al cioccolato e una tazza di caffè amaro, aspettando l’arrivo dei quotidiani, cercavo di immaginare un futuro diverso. C’era una nuova opzione. Era un saggio convincente.
Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling--Visualized Note: This article is included in our year-end storytelling advice round-up. A while back, now-former Pixar storyboard artist Emma Coats tweeted a series of pearls of narrative wisdom she had gleaned from working at the studio. This list of 22 rules of storytelling was widely embraced as it was applicable to any writer or anyone who was in the business of communicating (which is pretty much everyone, including software developers). And much of its advice (e.g. "You gotta keep in mind what's interesting to you as an audience, not what's fun to do as a writer. They can be very different") is still as applicable as ever. Last week, Dino Ignacio, a UX Director at a subsidiary of Electronic Arts, created a series of image macros of the 22 rules, posting them to Imgur. Have a look through more of them in the slides above.