Read Like A Writer

There are two ways to learn how to write fiction: by reading it and by writing it. Yes, you can learn lots about writing stories in workshops, in writing classes and writing groups, at writers' conferences. You can learn technique and process by reading the dozens of books like this one on fiction writing and by reading articles in writers' magazines. But the best teachers of fiction are the great works of fiction themselves. You can learn more about the structure of a short story by reading Anton Chekhov's 'Heartache' than you can in a semester of Creative Writing 101. If you read like a writer, that is, which means you have to read everything twice, at least. When you read a story or novel the first time, just let it happen. Enjoy the journey. When you've finished, you know where the story took you, and now you can go back and reread, and this time notice how the writer reached that destination. Notice the choices he made at each chapter, each sentence, each word. (Every word is a choice.) You see now how the transitions work, how a character gets across a room. All this time you're learning. You loved the central character in the story, and now you can see how the writer presented the character and rendered her worthy of your love and attention. The first reading is creative—you collaborate with the writer in making the story. The second reading is critical.


John Dufresne, from his book, The Lie That Tells A Truth: A Guide to Writing Fiction

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Showing posts with label Writing Quotes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Writing Quotes. Show all posts

Saturday, April 8, 2023

There is a Magic in Story Writing by John Steinbeck | Writing Quote

Writing Quote

There is a Magic in Story Writing

 

by John Steinbeck

 

 

 If there is a magic in story writing, 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. The formula seems to lie solely in the aching urge of the writer to convey something he feels important to the reader. If the writer has that urge, he may sometimes, but by no means always, find the way to do it. You must perceive the excellence that makes a good story good or the errors that make a bad story. For a bad story is only an ineffective story.

-- John Steinbeck


About thr Author  

John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. (February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American author and the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature winner "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social perception." He has been called "a giant of American letters."  Wikipedia 

 John Steinbeck at Amazon

Saturday, March 4, 2023

Read, Read, Read, Verything by William Faulkner | Writing Quote 

 

Writing Quote
 

Purpose of a Writer by Albert Camus

 

 Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window.

 --William Faulkner

 

Abouts the Author 


William Cuthbert Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner
was an William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most of his life. Wikipedia

 
Notable works: The Sound and the Fury; As I Lay Dying; Light in August; Absalom, A...
Notable awards: Nobel Prize in Literature (1949); Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1955, 19...
Born: William Cuthbert Falkner; September 25, 1897; New Albany, Mississippi, U.S
Died: July 6, 1962 (aged 64); Byhalia, Mississippi, U.S
Short stories: A Rose for Emily, Barn Burning, Dry September, and more
Plays: Requiem for a Nun

 

William Faulkner Books at Amazon

Monday, January 23, 2023

Purpose of a Writer by Albert Camus | Writing Quote

Writing Quote

Purpose of a Writer 

by Albert Camus

 

The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.

--Albert Camus

 

About the Author 

Albert Camus
 Albert Camus was a French philosopher, author, dramatist, and journalist. He was the recipient of the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44, the second-youngest recipient in history. His works include  The Stranger, The Plague, The Myth of Sisyphus, The Fall, and The Rebel.  Wikipedia


Born: November 7, 1913, Drean, Algeria
Died: January 4, 1960, Villeblevin, France
Spouse: Francine Faure (m. 1940–1960) and Simone Hie (m. 1934–1940)
Parents: Catherine Hélène Sintés and Lucien Auguste Camus

Albert Camus at Amazon

Wednesday, November 2, 2022

America is the Wealthiest Nation on Earth, but its People are Mainly Poor, from Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut

 America Quote from Slaughterhouse-Five

by Kurt Vonnegut

 

     America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, 'It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.' It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: 'if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?' There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand – glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register.

    Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.

Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
Tags: america, disgrace, inequality, love, poor

 Kurt Vonnegut Books at Amazon

 

 About the Author

Kurt Vonnegut
Vonnegut in February 1972
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was an American writer known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels.[1] In a career spanning over 50 years, he published fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and five nonfiction works; further collections have been published after his death. Wikipedia

Kurt Vonnegut Books at Amazon

Saturday, July 30, 2022

Writing Quote: John Steinbeck: If there is a magic in story writing...

Writing Quote  

Pulitzer Prize winner and Nobel laureate John Steinbeck (February 27, 1902–December 20, 1968)

Pulitzer Prize winner and Nobel laureate John Steinbeck


(February 27, 1902–December 20, 1968)


If there is a magic in story writing, 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. The formula seems to lie solely in the aching urge of the writer to convey something he feels important to the reader. If the writer has that urge, he may sometimes, but by no means always, find the way to do it. You must perceive the excellence that makes a good story good or the errors that make a bad story. For a bad story is only an ineffective story.

Sunday, February 13, 2022

Many Who Attempt To Write Can Never Succeed

 


Many who attempt to write can never succeed. Some succeed despite all obstacles. But in between are a great number with varying degree of ability, many of them appearing in books or magazines, some of them attaining a fair degree of real success, some of them failing of print, but no one of them who could not do far better if he would shake himself free from the influence of machine-like methods and give opportunity to whatever of individuality may lie within him. 

A long procession of possibilities unrealized, regrettable because of the loss to American fiction, pathetic if one looks behind the manuscripts at vain struggles and hopes unfulfilled.

Excerpt from Fiction Writers on Fiction Writing

Buy Guy Fiction Writing Books at Amazon

 

Thursday, December 31, 2020

Anton Chekhov Quote to Maria Kiselyova, January 14, 1887 on Writing

Anton Chekhov Quote to Maria Kiselyova, January 14, 1887 on Writing



"Your statement that the world is "teeming with villains and villanesses" is true. Human nature is imperfect, so it would be odd to perceive none but the righteous. Requiring literature to dig up a "pearl" from the pack of villains is tantamount to negating literature altogether. Literature is accepted as an art because it depicts life as it actually is. Its aim is the truth, unconditional and honest. Limiting its functions to as narrow a field as extracting "pearls" would be as deadly for art as requiring Levitan to draw a tree without any dirty bark or yellowed leaves. A "pearl" is a fine thing, I agree. But the writer is not a pastry chef, he is not a cosmetician and not an entertainer. He is a man bound by contract to his sense of duty and to his conscience. Once he undertakes this task, it is too late for excuses, and no matter how horrified, he must do battle with his squeamishness and sully his imagination with the grime of life. He is just like any ordinary reporter. What would you say if a newspaper reporter as a result of squeamishness or a desire to please his readers were to limit his descriptions to honest city fathers, high-minded ladies, and virtuous railroadmen?

 To a chemist there is nothing impure on earth. The writer should be just as objective as the chemist; he should liberate himself from everyday subjectivity and acknowledge that manure piles play a highly respectable role in the landscape and that evil passions are every bit as much a part of life as good ones."

Monday, April 10, 2017

Ernest Hemingway’s “Iceberg Theory” or "Theory of Omission" of Writing

If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing.

 –Ernest Hemingway



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