Revise notes constantly—try to develop the ability to read them as though you had never seen them before, to see how well they communicate. Constant revision, whether or not you’re going to “do” anything with what you’ve written, also teaches you to write better in the first place, when you first write something down.
LYDIA DAVIS
There’s a sort of soul-quality in writing, if it’s any good. It has a spirit or an energy to it that is very integral to who the writer is on a deep level. It’s almost a cellular thing. It takes place in the cells of the writing, and it is what makes it alive or not. That’s why most writers have a cynical attitude toward writing programs. You can teach people a lot about craft and various techniques, and you can certainly teach them to appreciate, but you cannot give them spirit or soul if it’s not there.
MARY GAITSKILL
My father, without, I think, realizing what he was doing, made me think of writing as play rather than work. He was always telling me stories, encouraging me, taking an interest in my toy theater, and so on. And it seems to me that writing has been a game that I have gone on playing ever since. I am inclined to think of writers who bore me as being “workers.”
CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD
The worst thing you can do is censor yourself as the pencil hits the paper. You must not edit until you get it all on paper. If you can put everything down, stream-of-consciousness, you'll do yourself a service.
STEPHEN SONDHEIM
The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what—these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence. And they usually occur in proportion to the education and rank.
WILLIAM ZINSSER
When we’re under the spell of a compelling story, we undergo internal changes along with the protagonist, and her insights become part of the way we, too, see the world. Stories instill meaning directly into our belief system the same way experience does—not by telling us what is right, but by allowing us to feel it ourselves. Because just like life, story is emotion based. As Harvard psychology professor Daniel Gilbert said, “Indeed, feelings don’t just matter, they are what mattering means.” In life, if we can’t feel emotion, we can’t make a single rational decision—it’s biology. In a story, if we’re not feeling, we’re not reading. It is emotion, rather than logic, that telegraphs meaning, thus emotion is what your novel must be wired to transmit, straight from the protagonist to us.
LISA CRON
By having children, I've both sabotaged and saved myself as a writer. [...] With a child you certainly can't be a Bruce Chatwin or a Hemingway, living the adventurer-writer life. No running with the bulls at Pamplona. If you value your relationships with your children, you can't write about them. You have to make up other, less convincing children. There is also one's inclination to be charming instead of presenting a grittier truth about the world. But then, having children has also made me this particular writer. Without my children, I'd have written with less fervor; I wouldn't understand life in the same way. I'd write fewer comic scenes, which are the most challenging. I'd probably have become obsessively self-absorbed, or slacked off. Maybe I'd have become an alcoholic. Many of the writers I love most were alcoholics. I've made my choice, I sometimes think: Wonderful children instead of hard liquor.
LOUISE ERDRICH
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.
H.P. LOVECRAFT
On the third or fourth draft, pencil in hand, I reread my test, by this point practically a fair copy, and eliminate whatever can be eliminated, whatever seems useless. Each deletion is a triumph. At the bottom of every page I write, “crossed out seven words,” “crossed out ten words,” as the case may be. It gives me great pleasure to get rid of what is futile.
MARGUERITE YOURCENAR
It can be daunting, visually, from the very beginning, for a reader to realize he or she must focus and engage non-stop on a paragraph that goes on nearly the length of the page. It’s what’s in the paragraph that matters, of course, but still, remember to let your reader breathe. Be interesting, and take care of your reader.
RICK BASS
Writerly wisdom of the ages collected by the author of Advice To Writers, The Big Book of Irony, and The Portable Curmudgeon.
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