Never Pay Attention to What They Write About You

Be aware that some people will not like what you do and, by extension, may not like you, or think they don’t. This is the age of the troll and the mob – there are people out there who enjoy being viciously negative about the work of others; often anonymously, of course. If your work gets noticed, some of this will come your way. Learn to distinguish between the useful criticism and the pointless spite. Absorb the former and ignore the latter. Or just take Andy Warhol’s advice: never pay attention to what they write about you; just measure it in inches.

PAUL KINGSNORTH

The First Person

I was always a bit contemptuous of the first person. I was stupid about it. I thought it wouldn’t allow me to write about other people. But, in fact, it allows you to do it in a really interesting way because it’s all inflected by the subjectivity of the character. Once I stopped feeling self-conscious about it, then it moved quickly.

ZADIE SMITH

Don't Read Your Published Work

Writers generally do not like to read their work once it is published. We find mistakes. We find things that make us cringe. And the whole process kills whatever momentum we may be feeling. The body of work becomes a body of evidence in a case built against us. We find a writer we barely recognize, and who seems to want to pick a fight. See all our books lined up on the shelf. They are a museum, a graveyard. They are a chorus line, arranged side by side like the Rockettes. All that’s missing is the kicks.

ROGER ROSENBLATT

Creating Suspense

One of the main elements of creating suspense is making the reader understand what's at stake. The bigger the stakes for the characters, the more potential for suspense…. Creating suspense involves making the reader ask a question, then withholding the answer for as long as possible, without losing their interest. That means creating false leads, going on side quests, creating diversions, whilst maintaining the tension.

JOANNE HARRIS

Fiction Is Payback

Write what you know. Bellow once said, “Fiction is the higher autobiography.” In other words, fiction is payback for those who have wronged you. When people read my books “My Gym Teacher Was an Abusive Bully” and “She Called Them Brussels Sprouts: A Survivor’s Tale,” they’re often surprised when I tell them they contain an autobiographical element. Therein lies the art, I say. How do you make that which is your everyday into the stuff of literature? Listen to your heart. Ask your heart, Is it true? And if it is, let it be. Once the lawyers sign off, you’re good to go.

COLSON WHITEHEAD

Self-Doubt

My internal life as a writer has been a constant battle with the small, whispering voice (well, sometimes it shouts) that tells me I can't do it. This time, the voice taunts me, you will fall flat on your face. Every single piece of writing I have ever completed – whether a novel, a memoir, an essay, short story or review – has begun as a wrestling match between hopelessness and something else, some other quality that all writers, if they are to keep going, must possess. Call it stubbornness, stamina, a take-no-prisoners determination, but a writer at work reminds me of nothing so much as a terrier with a bone: gnawing, biting, chewing, until finally there is nothing left to do but fall away.

DANI SHAPIRO

No Shame

You have to be shameless. You can’t worry about being decorous. This doesn’t mean that you have to be obscene and crazy and smear your pages with feces. That’s not the point. But shame won’t do. I couldn’t have written Sabbath’s Theater if I felt shame. I feel plenty of shame in my own life—don’t get me wrong. I’m just as shame ridden as the next person is. But when I sit down to write, I’m free from shame. When Portnoy isn’t enraged or lust ridden, I’m happy, just as when Mickey Sabbath is full of lust, I’m sitting in my studio inventing Mickey Sabbath in a state of horniness. I’m not horny when I’m sitting there writing it. So this is a crucial distinction that has to be made. Contrary to public opinion—such as it is—Zuckerman has no sex life whatsoever. In any of those books. I’ve found him being described as “the sex obsessed” and so on. It isn’t so.

PHILIP ROTH

Engage the Reader's Imagination

In my own writing, I have been accused of (or is it praised for?) being a minimalist, which I suppose means that I don’t write a whole lot. This is true. For the most part, I avoid adjectives and I definitely avoid adverbs, which also means that I tend not to describe much. I rarely describe what my characters look like or what they wear or how they do their hair. My hope is that this will either not be important or if it is important it will somehow surface within the text. But better yet, by avoiding descriptions and explanations, I allow the reader the freedom to picture for themselves what my characters, their clothes and haircuts look like and thus participate in the text. In other words, I hope my readers will read my work with imagination.

LILY TUCK

The Secret of Writing

I took a writing course in summer school in 1939, when I was in high school. But it didn’t work. The secret of writing was, to go and live in the library two or four days a week for ten years. I graduated from the library having read every single book in it. And along the way I wrote every day of every week of every month, for every year. And in ten years, I became a writer.

RAY BRADBURY

Don't Talk Down to Readers

Don’t talk down to readers. They may know as much as you do about your subject, or more. If they don’t, they don’t want to be told how lucky they are to have you tell them all about it. Military techno-thrillers are often packed with acronyms like SOSUS and AIM-9s and Pratt & Whitney J-57s, and even if you don’t know what the hell those things are, you feel you’re being talked to as an equal when you encounter them on the page (and these days, it’s not difficult to look them up). Same goes for nature. And as for technology. . . . 

HELEN MACDONALD