A few years ago, Ann Patchett opened an independent bookstore here in Nashville called Parnassus. And though I’ve never read one of her books, that instantly made me a fan.
After reading her writing tips, I’m even more of fan. So I pulled a few that appeared in her memoir, The Getaway Car.
These are really good.
- No one should go into debt to study creative writing. It’s simply not worth it. Do not think of it as an investment in yourself that you’ll be able to recoup later on. This is not medical school.
- Ideas are everywhere. Lift up a big rock and look under it, stare into a window of a house you drive past and dream about what’s going on inside. Read the newspaper, ask your father about his sister, think of something that happened to you or someone you know and then think about it turning out an entirely different way.
- People like to ask me if writing can be taught, and I say yes. I can teach you how to write a better sentence, how to write dialogue, maybe even how to construct a plot. But I can’t teach you how to have something to say.
- If you want to write and can’t figure out how to do it, try this: Pick an amount of time to sit at your desk every day. Start with twenty minutes, say, and work up as quickly as possible to as much time as you can spare. Do you really want to write? Sit for two hours a day.
- Many writers feel that plot is passé; they’re so over plot—who needs plot?—to which I say, learn how to construct one first and then feel free to reject it.
- Even if you’re writing a book that jumps around in time, has ten points of view, and is chest-deep in flashbacks, do your best to write it in the order in which it will be read, because it will make the writing, and the later editing, incalculably easier.
- One method of revision that I find both loathsome and indispensable is reading my work aloud when I’m finished. There are things I can hear—the repetition of words, a particularly flat sentence—that I don’t otherwise catch.
Oh, man, I have so much to say about that first tip that I’m going to write an entire post about it…soon. Why do people go into a crapload of debt for a degree that will never allow them to make the money they’ll need to pay back their loans? More to come on that in relation to creative writing degrees.
In fact, I might write a post about each one of these. They’re that good.
Like #3, it’s so basic but so very true. You can learn to write, but you still need to have something to say. That’s all on you.
Any of these tips stand out to you?
Past writing tips from famous authors.
What Hemingway can teach you about web writing.
5 writing tips from C.S. Lewis
John Steinbeck’s 6 Writing Tips
Margaret Atwood’s 10 Rules of Writing
Jonathan Franzen’s 10 Rules of Writing
