Cliff Notes On The Craft: Volume 4

Welcome to the fourth volume of Cliff Notes.

Hope you've enjoyed reading them as much as I've enjoyed scouring the Internet for them.

As always you can check out Brain Pickings and Advice To Writers. Two of the sources where I find the advice that I post. Another great source is Paris Review. They've got tons of great interviews and quotes from authors. You can get lost there for hours browsing through their archives. It's a rich source of information.

On to the cliff notes . . . 

But first lets play something on the juke box . . . 

Cliff notes on dialogue from John Steinbeck:

"If you are using dialogue -- say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech."

Cliff notes on truth in writing from Tennessee Willaims:

 "When I write I don't aim to shock people, and I'm surprised when I do. But I don't think that anything that occurs in life should be omitted from art, though the artist should present it in a fashion that is artistic and not ugly. I set out to tell the truth. And sometimes the truth is shocking."

Cliff notes on ethics in writing from Ursula K. Le Guin:

"There's a kind of ethical question when you're writing for kids. YOu have to stand back from the work and say, 'Could this scare an eight-year-old? Could it do any harm?' The editors don't do that for you. With children's literature, the writer has to be in the foreground. There's a cruel streak to Roal Dahl. One of my daughters was very fond of his earlier books. I was very happy when she outgrew him, I have to say. There's something a little gross and a little cruel in his work. Some of the books, like the Goosebumps books, look sort of gross or dumb, but they're harmless, I think kids need a lot of dumb stuff. Roughage in the diet."

Cliff notes on writing a novel from Joe Hill:

(This quote came from Joe's Tumblr page Joe Hill's Thrills. Check it out.)

"The first is to stop thinking about writing a novel that is going to take you two years. That's too overwhelming. Instead, just focus on what you're going to do today, which is write another great scene: a scene that does something unexpected and fun and is going to want to make people read on. Something that explores the characters in a way that's real but surprising. Don't write about someone waking up, unless they're waking up to find a dead body next to them. Don't write about someone making breakfast unless there's a head in the fridge . . . or his wife is going to call halfway through his eggs to leave his drunk and lazy ass for an alligator wrestler and part-time evangelist preacher. That would be a great scene to write and that's all the job comes down to. Your job is to write one great scene . . . and then write another great scene. When you have a whole stack of them, it's a short story, or a novel."

Come back next week and I'll have the rest of the Joe Hill quote for you.

But before you go, post your favorite writing advice in the comments.

Read More

Cliff Notes On The Craft: H.P. Lovecraft Edition

This is the third volume of Cliff Notes. 

I hope you guys enjoy this weekly post as much as I do.

This week's Notes are special. I was browsing over on Brain Pickings and, man, did she have a heck of a post. It was a collection of advice that H.P. Lovecraft had given on writing. I can't even tell you how highly I recommend you going over there and checking out the entirety of the post. If you want to do that click this link right here. You won't be sorry. What I'm going to do is give you my favorite quotes from Lovecraft. I'm reading them over and over trying to suck up everything he has to say on the subject on writing. It's valuable stuff. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

But, first, let me give you some music to enjoy.

Cliff notes from Lovecraft on the importance of reading:

“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. In many cases, the usage of good authors will be found a more effective guide than any amount of precept. 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.”

Cliff notes from Lovecraft on vocabulary:

“One superlatively important effect of wide reading is the enlargement of vocabulary which always accompanies it. The average student is gravely impeded by the narrow range of words from which he must choose, and he soon discovers that in long compositions he cannot avoid monotony. In reading, the novice should note the varied mode of expression practiced by good authors, and should keep in his mind for future use the many appropriate synonymes he encounters. Never should an unfamiliar word be passed over without elucidation; for with a little conscientious research we may each day add to our conquests in the realm of philology, and become more and more ready for graceful independent expression.

But in enlarging the vocabulary, we must beware lest we misuse our new possessions. We must remember that there are fine distinctions betwixt apparently similar words, and that language must ever be selected with intelligent care.”

Cliff notes from Lovecraft on narration:

“In fictional narration, verisimilitude is absolutely essential. A story must be consistent and must contain no event glaringly removed from the usual order of things, unless that event is the main incident, and is approached with the most careful preparation. In real life, odd and erratic things do occasionally happen; but they are out of place in an ordinary story, since fiction is a sort of idealization of the average. Development should be as lifelike as possible, and a weak, trickling conclusion should be assiduously avoided. The end of a story must be stronger rather than weaker than the beginning; since it is the end which contains the denouement or culmination, and which will leave the strongest impression upon the reader. It would not be amiss for the novice to write the last paragraph of his story first, once a synopsis of the plot has been carefully prepared—as it always should be. In this way he will be able to concentrate his freshest mental vigour upon the most important part of his narrative; and if any changes be later found needful, they can easily be made. In no part of a narrative should a grand or emphatic thought or passage be followed by one of tame or prosaic quality. This is anticlimax, and exposes a writer to much ridicule.”

Read More

Cliff Notes On The Craft: Volume 2

I want to start this post off by apologizing for not getting this post up on Wednesday. 

It's been a busy week.

This week I think I've got some good cliff notes for you, and will have an even better post next week.

Remember a lot of the writing advice I find comes from spending hours searching through Brain Pickings and Advice To Writers. Those are two great websites that are worth your time.

Now, before you read what I have for you this week, lets find you some music.

Gimme a second . . . 

Here ya go . . . 

Check out Alabama Shakes. They're a great up and coming band. Put them in your Spotify, buy them on iTunnes, or get to a store and purchase their CD. Whatever you do, listen to this band.

And without further ado. Here are your cliff notes on the craft:

Cliff notes on imagination from Ernest Hemingway:

"Imagination? It is the one thing beside honesty that a good writer must have. The more he learns from experience the more he can imagine."

Cliff notes on rewriting from Mark Twain:

"You need not expect to get your book right the first time. Go to work  and revamp or rewrite it. God only exhibits his thunder and lightning at intervals, and so they always command attention. These are God's adjectives. You thunder and lightning too much; the reader ceases to get under the bed, by and by."

Cliff notes on editing from F. Scott Fitzgerald:

"Cut out all those exclamation marks. An exclamation mark is like laughing at your own joke."

Cliff notes on becoming a good writer from Christopher Moore:

"Well, not being very good can usually be fixed, but having nothing interesting to write about can't. If you can't think of anything to write about, it's best, probably, to learn another skill or aspire to a different career. (I'm talking about fiction here. If you want to write non-fiction, you can always work as a journalist. Then they tell you what to write.) So my advice would be, and is, if you're not very good, but you'd like to be, then take five years, learn your craft, do some writing, and if you're still not good, go do something else. You'll live a lot happier life that way. Writing is too hard to do if you aren't enjoying it and getting better."

Cliff notes from me:

(I put myself last not because I think I'm more important, or because I think my advice is better, but because I think what these writers have to say is much more important than me. They have the success that gives weight to their advice.)

"Everyone is a natural storyteller, but not everyone is a writer. A writer is someone who has spent years perfecting his craft. A storyteller just tells stories."

Read More

Cliff Notes On The Craft: Volume 1

Cliff Notes On The Craft is going to be a new feature here at the blog.

These cliff notes will be posted every Wednesday and will be aimed at writers.

In the past I've posted essays that were meant to be my advice to writers. I may occasionally post blogs like that but not as often from here on out. 

I'm 28 and have been writing for around 4 to 5 years. I've learned a lot, but don't know nearly as much as more successful writers do. 

Here in the Cliff Notes I'll be including short thoughts on writing from myself and other writers. I'll be scouring the Interwebs and finding the best advice from the best writers. 

Such websites will include: Advice To Writers, Brain Pickings, @Quotes4Writers, and a host of other websites. Most of these sites you can find under the tab Sites of Interest. Check them out.

And before we get started here is some music for your listening pleasure . . .

Cliff notes on writing everyday from Geoff Dyer:

"Do it everyday. Make a habit of putting your observations into words and gradually this will become instinct. This is the most important rule of all and, naturally, I don't follow it."

Cliff notes on language from Kurt Vonnegut:

"As for your use of language: Remember that two great masters of language, William Shakespeare and James Joyce, wrote sentences that were almost childlike when their subjects were most profound. 'To be or not to be?' asks Shakespeare's Hamlet. The longest word is three letters long. Joyce, when he was frisky, could put together a sentence as intricate and as glittering as a necklace for Cleopatra, but my favorite sentence in his short story 'Eveline' is just this one: 'She was tired.' At that point in the story, no other words could break the heart of the reader as those three words do.

Simplicity of language is not only reputable, but perhaps even sacred. The Bible opens with a sentence well within the writing skills of a lively fourteen-year-old: 'In the beginning God created the heaven and earth.'"

Cliff notes on imagination from Neil Gaiman:

"You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we're doing it."

Cliff notes on reading from Stephen King:

"The real importance of reading is that it creates an ease and intimacy with the process of writing . . . It also offers you a constantly growing knowledge of what has been done and what hasn't, what is trite and what is fresh, what works and what just lies there dying (or dead) on the page. The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or word processor."

Cliff notes from me:

(I put myself last not because I think I'm more important, or because I think my advice is better, but because I think what these writers have to say is much more important than me. They have the success that gives weight to their advice.)

"Good writing should read like good music sounds. There should be rhythms and melodies and harmonies. It should take you to other places and another time. It should make you feel deep seated emotions and experience what you've never experienced before. Good writing should move you and nourish you and cause you to grow."

What's your thoughts, writers? 

Have any writing advice you revisit or that helps you push forward when stuck?

Read More