the word studio notebook

I'm a freelance writer, designer, and game developer. My name is Will Hindmarch, and this is a casual notebook I keep on the web.

Posts tagged writing advice

May 4 '12
Zadie Smith's Rules For Writers

This is not new. This is not out of date. This is good stuff.

1 note Tags: writing advice

Apr 4 '12
theatlantic: Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 Tips on How to Write a Great Story 1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted. 2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for. 3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water. 4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action. 5. Start as close to the end as possible. 6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of. 7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia. 8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages. Via Brainpickings/Reddit [Photo: AP] This list. I go back to it, like, a lot. I sometimes disagree with parts of it, but I always go back to it.

theatlantic:

Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 Tips on How to Write a Great Story

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Via Brainpickings/Reddit [Photo: AP]

This list. I go back to it, like, a lot. I sometimes disagree with parts of it, but I always go back to it.

4,522 notes (via theatlantic)Tags: writing advice writing Vonnegut lists

Feb 7 '12
“This is a quote about writing and about being a writer. You’re a writer. You could be writing right now but you’re reading this instead. Me, I am writing. Go write.”
— Will Hindmarch, on Tumblr right now

Tags: writing advice

Feb 5 '12
“When people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.”
—

Neil Gaiman (via “25 Insights On Becoming A Better Writer”)

(I’ve posted this before. This occurred to me again today, though, so I am sharing it again.)

16 notes Tags: writing writing advice writers

Jan 22 '12

On Writing Writing Advice

I set aside this space to put in some writing advice—maybe a quote from some famous novelist or long-dead playwright—but finding writing advice now would send me sailing across the open sea, from island to island, whiling hours on pre-whittled quotes and Wikipedia links hidden behind choking vines. Those hours spent trawling the Internet’s seas would be years off my characters’ lives, a decade of adventure traded for a bon mot on the shore. If you need me, I’ll be in the bar at port, plied with drinks and telling tales, for a writer at sea is safe but that’s not what writers were made for.

1 note Tags: writing life writing advice

Oct 9 '11
“When people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.”
— Neil Gaiman, (via “25 Insights On Becoming A Better Writer” at 99%)

27 notes Tags: writing advice writing writers

Oct 9 '11
“I have forced myself to begin writing when I’ve been utterly exhausted, when I’ve felt my soul as thin as a playing card, when nothing has seemed worth enduring for another five minutes… and somehow the activity of writing changes everything. Or appears to do so.”
— Joyce Carol Oates (via “25 Insights On Becoming A Better Writer” at 99%)

32 notes Tags: writing advice writing writers

Oct 9 '11
“In private correspondence the great mystery writer Raymond Chandler once confessed that even if he didn’t write anything, he made sure he sat down at his desk every single day and concentrated. I understand the purpose behind his doing this. This is the way Chandler gave himself the physical stamina a professional writer needs, quietly strengthening his willpower. This sort of daily training was indispensable to him.”
— Haruki Murakami [via “25 Insights On Becoming A Better Writer” at 99%]

23 notes Tags: writing advice writing writers

Aug 23 '11
“I paraphrase Aristotle: If you want to be comical, write about people to whom the audience can feel superior; if you want to be tragical, write about at least one person to whom the audience is bound to feel inferior, and no fair having human problems solved by dumb luck or heavenly intervention.”
— Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. [via]

Tags: writing writing advice Arifuckingstotle

Apr 13 '11
The Atlantic: First Drafts, Ctd: "One Thing at a Time"

theatlantic:

steampoweredmedia writes

It really is that simple: incremental work over a period time leads to creative output. It even has the practice we need to get good built right in.

Word.

12 notes (via theatlantic)Tags: writing advice