Writing Mistake #12: Writing Front to Back

Writing front to back might be called the Jack Kerouac or D.H. Lawrence style of writing. Of Kerouac, Truman Capote once remarked that this wasn't writing, it was typing. You probably know the names Kerouac and Lawrence, so that says something there. Of course for every Kerouac or Lawrence, there are several billion people who aren't Kerouac or Lawrence.

How to Write #3: Your First Lie or the Basic Story

Almost 20 years ago I encountered the following in a college literature course:

A woman is sitting in her old, shuttered house. She knows that she is alone in the whole world; every other thing is dead.     The doorbell rings.

Is this a story? The editor of Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry and Drama, X.J. Kennedy, at the least claims it is fiction.

Writing Mistake #11: Can't Take Criticism

On a recent episode of Californication (season 3, episode 2, "The Land of Rape and Honey"), Hank Moody (David Duchovny) tells one of his writing students:

"Your story was bad. It was terrible, in fact. It's like that lame Twilight bullshit. I have no patience for that crap. It's not writing; it's like bound toilet paper. Now I'm not saying you won't get better if you keep writing, because you will, no question. But I am saying that if you can do anything else with your life right now, anything at all, I think maybe you should do that. Because the world doesn't need any more lame vampire fiction. You know what I'm saying?"

How to Write #2: Starting with Plot and Types of Tension

We're going to write a story, but we are surprised when we look at the paper and there is nothing on it. That won't do. We need something there. There is some dust, but it isn't doing anything. We can add a character, but it will be as exciting as that dust. We need action. We need plot.

Writing Mistake #10: Lacking Intimacy

Intimacy in writing is related to the idea of showing rather than telling (see also: Writing Mistake #3: Telling about a Story Rather than Telling a Story). In this case, I'm referring to a specific aspect of showing. Here we are concerned with distancing between narration and reader.

Writing Mistake #9: Banking It All on the First Line

Another myth that has afflicted many writers in the false notion that the first sentence of a story must be the best. Variations to this myth extend this to the first paragraph, or the first page, or the first ten pages. The general form is to state that the first something of your story must be great.

How to Write #1, Part 2: Structure, Wait, What?

Yes, I think too much, and I have to smell every book I read. I love that smell of paper and ink. And I'm cursed with all these bits and pieces of things floating around my head that I've picked up somewhere at some point in my life.

How to Write #1: Structure

Let's explore the question, "What makes a writer?" In one sense we are all, or at least most of us, are writers. We capture words on paper or in electronic form and can state that we have written something. But our use of the word writer comes with another condition; that condition is that those captured words generate an audience.

Writing Mistake #8: Waiting for Something to Happen

The worst advice I've heard on writing so far is that if you put two characters together long enough, something is bound to happen. To me, this is the antithesis of writing, for writing is about control, not happenstance.

Writing Mistake #7: Starting at the Beginning, Finishing at the End

Yes, yes, yes, Aristotle said that plot must have a beginning, middle, and end. He is also responsible for stating the Earth was the center of the universe, undoing many more accurate theories until the time of Nicolaus Copernicus. Even Syd Field, despite never writing anything himself, created an entire Hollywood screenwriting industry by basically ripping off Aristotle's Poetics, his beginning, middle, and end.

Writing Mistake #6: Writing by Feeling

I'm going to avoid the whole discussion about whether a soul exists or not because that is a discussion for my other blog but not here. I do have to mention the word soul because what I want to cover is most often put into terms using this word. We hear and read phrases like "the soul of the writer" or "writing with soul."

Writing Mistake #5: Supporting the Myth of Writer's Block

Every profession has its superstitions. Writer's block is one of the two most common (the second I'll deal with in Writing Mistake #6: Writing by Feeling). It's such a common belief that a sub-industry has emerged specifically on how to deal with it. A simple search for writer's block on the Internet will provide an endless list of webpages that expound every possible cure for this imagined disease.