TIPS FOR WRITING FICTION
G'day folks,
Here are a few tips for you writers from those who should know; courtesy of an Irish and British author.
Roddy Doyle
1 Do not place a photograph of
your favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the
famous ones who committed suicide.
2 Do be kind to yourself. Fill
pages as quickly as possible; double space, or write on every second line.
Regard every new page as a small triumph –
3 Until you get to Page 50. Then
calm down, and start worrying about the quality. Do feel anxiety – it's the
job.
4 Do give the work a name as
quickly as possible. Own it, and see it. Dickens knew Bleak House was
going to be called Bleak House before he started writing it. The rest
must have been easy.
5 Do restrict your browsing to a
few websites a day. Don't go near the online bookies – unless it's research.
6 Do keep a thesaurus, but in the
shed at the back of the garden or behind the fridge, somewhere that demands
travel or effort. Chances are the words that come into your head will do fine,
eg "horse", "ran", "said".
7 Do, occasionally, give in to
temptation. Wash the kitchen floor, hang out the washing. It's research.
8 Do change your mind. Good ideas
are often murdered by better ones. I was working on a novel about a band called
the Partitions. Then I decided to call them the Commitments.
9 Do not search amazon.co.uk for
the book you haven't written yet.
10 Do spend a few minutes a day
working on the cover biog – "He divides his time between Kabul and Tierra
del Fuego." But then get back to work.
Helen Dunmore
1 Finish the day's writing when
you still want to continue.
2 Listen to what you have written.
A dud rhythm in a passage of dialogue may show that you don't yet
understand the characters well enough to write in their voices.
3 Read Keats's letters.
4 Reread, rewrite, reread,
rewrite. If it still doesn't work, throw it away. It's a nice feeling, and you
don't want to be cluttered with the corpses of poems and stories which have
everything in them except the life they need.
5 Learn poems by heart.
6 Join professional organisations
which advance the collective rights of authors.
7 A problem with a piece of
writing often clarifies itself if you go for a long walk.
8 If you fear that taking care of
your children and household will damage your writing, think of JG Ballard.
9 Don't worry about posterity – as
Larkin (no sentimentalist) observed "What will survive of us is love".
Clancy's comment: Hope these points have helped you. Always good to have reminders.
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