Monday, 8 October 2012

Advice from Authors

1.  Ernest Hemingway

Use short sentences and short first paragraphs.

2.  Oscar Wilde

Be unpredictable.  "Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative."

3.  Anton Chekov

Show, don't tell.  "don't tell me the moon is shingin; show me the glint of light on the broken glass."

4.  Samuel Johnson

Keep it interesting.  "Make new things familiar and familiar things new."

5.  Ray Bradbury

Discount empty praise.  "Accept rejection and reject acceptance.

6.  Toni Morrison

Promote communication.  "Everything I have done in the writing world has been to expand articulation rather than close it."

7.  George Orwell

Watch your voice.  "Use active voice rather than the passive one...eliminate longer words when shorter ones work just as well."

8.  F. Scott Fitzgerald

Eliminate exclamation marks where possible.  An exclamation mark is like laughing at your own joke.

9.  Truman Capote

Editing is as important as writing.  "I believe more in the scissors than in the pencil."

10.  Maurice Sendak

Keep revising.  "I never spent less than two years on the text of one of my picture books even though each is [only] 380 words long."



 
 
 

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