Week 14 Lab: Advice to Writers

Advice to Writers

• "Competence is deadly": writers must risk being criticized or humiliated if they make creative choices needed to become a great writer.
• "The Fun Part": If you want to be a writer, don't get lost in creating a brand for yourself until you've really established and enjoy the creative process.
• "Don't Try Too Much": When ending a story, it can probably actually end a few paragraphs earlier than you originally wrote it. Don't try to moralize the ending.
• "The Case for Semicolons": Semicolons (and dashes) create a link between sentences that is stronger than two sentences separated by a period, but still fragile.
• "Look for the Energy": When writing a story, you should be open to whatever direction it moves in. Don't necessarily have a preconceived ending in mind, but look for the place in the story with the most energy and take that route.
• "Use the Landscape": Describing the physical surroundings of a story can help set the emotional scene as well.
• "Be More Cold": To make readers feel pity for certain characters, describe predicaments in a cold, objective way.
• "Limitations Mean Freedom": Constraints can actually help you get through a creative block. They force you to discover something new or a new way of doing something in order to accomplish a task.
• "The Golden Hours": Cut out two, undistracted hours each day, and soon you will have written a book.

Image information: Photo by Green Chameleon on Unsplash.