Who's Your Ideal Reader?

Who’s your ideal reader? Don’t imagine someone who loves your work and gets what you’re trying to do. Imagine the most impatient person you know, the one whose attention is hard to hold onto, the one who says spit it out or get to the point when you’re trying to tell an anecdote. That’s your ideal reader. If you can successfully engage someone like that, you’re probably not cutting yourself any slack in the clarity department, and you’re definitely not cutting yourself any slack in the economy department.

PATRICK RYAN

Character is the Very Life of Fiction

Character is the very life of fiction. Setting exists so that the character has someplace to stand. Plot exists so the character can discover what he is really like, forcing the character to choice and action. And theme exists only to make the character stand up and be somebody.

JOHN GARDNER

Ask Yourself, Who Wants What?

A man or woman wants something and goes after it. In the process, they win, lose, or draw. John Gardner famously said that there are really only two stories in the world—a man or woman goes on a journey, or a stranger rides into town. And sometimes the best stories are an amalgamation of the two.

RICK BASS

Writing a Memoir Is Knocking Yourself Out with Your Own Fist

In some ways, writing a memoir is knocking yourself out with your own fist, if it’s done right. Sure, there’s the pleasure of doing work guaranteed to engage you emotionally—who’s indifferent to their own history? The form always has profound psychological consequence on its author. It can’t not. What project can match it for that? Plus you get to hang out with folks no longer on this side of the grass. Places and times you may have for decades ached after wind up erecting themselves around you as you work.

MARY KARR

The First Paragraph

One of the most difficult things is the first paragraph. I have spent many months on a first paragraph and once I get it, the rest just comes out very easily. In the first paragraph you solve most of the problems with your book. The theme is defined, the style, the tone. At least in my case, the first paragraph is a kind of sample of what the rest of the book is going to be.

GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ

Cruising the Internet Doesn't Count as Writing

Cruising the Internet doesn't count as writing. Neither does answering e-mail. Before you check Twitter & FB and do other similar tasks that get in the way of writing, write first. (I really need to take my own advice here!)

TERRY McMILLAN

It Takes Time to Find Your True Voice

I think a writer’s voice is really his or her authentic, natural voice—the way she actually expresses herself and sees the world. But it takes time to get to that. I think the first many years of writing you tend to write the way you think you’re supposed to sound, and gradually (if you’re lucky) you begin dropping that affect and getting to what is your true voice. In time, you come to know that voice well enough that you know how to emphasize it, enrich it.

SUSAN ORLEAN

A Writer Should Get As Much Education As Possible

A writer should get as much education as possible, but just going to school is not enough; if it were, all owners of doctorates would be inspired writers.

GWENDOLYN BROOKS

Don’t Introduce 20 Characters in the First Chapter

Don’t introduce 20 characters in the first chapter. Another rookie mistake. Your readers are eager to get started. Don’t bombard them with a barrage of names from four generations of the same family. Five names are enough to get started.

JOHN GRISHAM

Swing for the Fences

Each time out should be a swing for the fences. Don't do base-running drills. You can do those on your own time.

TOBIAS WOLFF