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. 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:
The Adverb Is Not Your Friend: Stephen King on Simplicity of Style by Maria Popova “I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops.” “Employ a simple and straightforward style,” Mark Twain instructed in the 18th of his 18 famous literary admonitions. And what greater enemy of simplicity and straightforwardness than the adverb? Or so argues Stephen King in On Writing: A Memoir on the Craft (public library), one of 9 essential books to help you write better. Though he may have used a handful of well-placed adverbs in his recent eloquent case for gun control, King embarks upon a forceful crusade against this malignant part of speech: The adverb is not your friend.Adverbs … are words that modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. King uses the admonition against adverbs as a springboard for a wider lens on good and bad writing, exploring the interplay of fear, timidity, and affectation: I’m convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing. Donating = Loving Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter.
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. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways to describe ice and snow than an Eskimo, you can do all the weather reporting you want. 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. This rule doesn’t require an explanation.
Stephen King's Top 20 Rules for Writers Image by the USO, via Flickr Commons In one of my favorite Stephen King interviews, for The Atlantic, he talks at length about the vital importance of a good opening line. “There are all sorts of theories,” he says, “it’s a tricky thing.” We’ve talked so much about the reader, but you can’t forget that the opening line is important to the writer, too. This is excellent advice. Revision in the second draft, “one of them, anyway,” may “necessitate some big changes” says King in his 2000 memoir slash writing guide On Writing. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. See a fuller exposition of King’s writing wisdom at Barnes & Noble’s blog. Related Content: Stephen King Creates a List of 96 Books for Aspiring Writers to Read Stephen King Writes A Letter to His 16-Year-Old Self: “Stay Away from Recreational Drugs” Ray Bradbury Offers 12 Essential Writing Tips and Explains Why Literature Saves Civilization Kurt Vonnegut’s Eight Tips on How to Write a Good Short Story
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. 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.
How to Write with Style: Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 Keys to the Power of the Written Word Find a Subject You Care About Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style. I am not urging you to write a novel, by the way — although I would not be sorry if you wrote one, provided you genuinely cared about something. A petition to the mayor about a pothole in front of your house or a love letter to the girl next door will do. Do Not Ramble, Though I won’t ramble on about that. Keep It Simple As for your use of language: Remember that two great masters of language, William Shakespeare and James Joyce, wrote sentences which were almost childlike when their subjects were most profound. Simplicity of language is not only reputable, but perhaps even sacred. Have the Guts to Cut It may be that you, too, are capable of making necklaces for Cleopatra, so to speak. Sound like Yourself Say What You Mean to Say Pity the Readers
The Most Moving and Timelessly Beautiful LGBTQ Love Letters in History What is love? This question haunts the human psyche perhaps more persistently than any other. It has occupied our collective imagination for millennia, it has baffled scientists, taunted philosophers, and tantalized artists. So mystified by love were the Ancient Greeks that they itemized six types of it. But nothing defines it with more exquisite expressiveness than the love letter. As we turn the leaf on a new chapter of modern history that embraces a more inclusive definition of love — both culturally and, at last, politically — here is a celebration of the human heart’s highest capacity through history’s most beautiful and timelessly bewitching LGBTQ love letters. The gender-bending protagonist in Virginia Woolf’s pioneering novel Orlando, which subverted censorship to revolutionize the politics of queer love, was based on the English poet Vita Sackville-West, Woolf’s onetime passionate lover and lifelong dear friend. …I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia. A few days later:
Kafka on Books and What Reading Does for the Human Soul By Maria Popova “Reading is the work of the alert mind, is demanding, and under ideal conditions produces finally a sort of ecstasy,” E.B. White wrote while contemplating the future of reading in 1951. In a November 1903 letter, found in the altogether enchanting compendium Letters to Friends, Family and Editors (public library), 20-year-old Kafka writes to his childhood friend, the art historian Oskar Pollak: Some books seem like a key to unfamiliar rooms in one’s own castle. A few months later, in January of 1904, he expounds on this sentiment in another letter to Pollak: I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. Complement Letters to Friends, Family and Editors with the illustrated gem Kafka for kids, then revisit Maurice Sendak’s little-known and lovely posters celebrating books and reading.
"I think if you're trying to present the point of view...