10 Rules of Writing
http://alisialeavitt.blogspot.com/2009/10/10-rules-of-writing.html
This is one of the best articles I've read in a long time. Devoid of flippant 'tricks' designed with no more content than is necessary to make the author sound pithy, Alisia Leavitt's rules are the same things that I've been advised directly by quite a few people in the last few years. They are not gimmicks that claim to be able to 'make you write', or ways to tap into this or that fad style or genre. They are aspects of craft that even a writer with obvious talent could, and does, easily miss.
I read a lot of advice on writing and the industry, people's experiences in the publishing world, query letter faux pas, articles from the angle of an agent or publisher on what things about writers make them insane. Some of it is very basic, things that make me have to remind myself that, yes, some people don't get this. Don't submit a manuscript full of typos and technical errors even if you know an editor is going to go over it before publication (of course this does not absolve you of doing the bulk of the work yourself!). Be prepared for rejection letters (the only person who thinks everything you do is perfect, that you're the smartest person in the world, the way it is and the best thing they've ever seen is your grandmother. Not even your mom, people). That sort of thing. Still others are focused on tips and techniques that I frankly don't agree with, but more often than not are coming from authors who are doing a very different kind of business than I want to do. The gentleman who wrote a very well thought-out blog post on how he believes revising/rewriting is actually an extremely bad thing for authors to do had published 90 novels. None of which, frankly, I thought I would enjoy reading. It's a different animal.
So, here they are. Ten very solid, very tough pieces of advice that, if followed well, should help to keep your manuscript from becoming a gargantuan, unwieldy beast of high-minded over-description and vocabulary flaunting. Being a writer is not about proving how well you can use words. It's about communication.
Posted from http://crows.dreamwidth.org.
This is one of the best articles I've read in a long time. Devoid of flippant 'tricks' designed with no more content than is necessary to make the author sound pithy, Alisia Leavitt's rules are the same things that I've been advised directly by quite a few people in the last few years. They are not gimmicks that claim to be able to 'make you write', or ways to tap into this or that fad style or genre. They are aspects of craft that even a writer with obvious talent could, and does, easily miss.
I read a lot of advice on writing and the industry, people's experiences in the publishing world, query letter faux pas, articles from the angle of an agent or publisher on what things about writers make them insane. Some of it is very basic, things that make me have to remind myself that, yes, some people don't get this. Don't submit a manuscript full of typos and technical errors even if you know an editor is going to go over it before publication (of course this does not absolve you of doing the bulk of the work yourself!). Be prepared for rejection letters (the only person who thinks everything you do is perfect, that you're the smartest person in the world, the way it is and the best thing they've ever seen is your grandmother. Not even your mom, people). That sort of thing. Still others are focused on tips and techniques that I frankly don't agree with, but more often than not are coming from authors who are doing a very different kind of business than I want to do. The gentleman who wrote a very well thought-out blog post on how he believes revising/rewriting is actually an extremely bad thing for authors to do had published 90 novels. None of which, frankly, I thought I would enjoy reading. It's a different animal.
So, here they are. Ten very solid, very tough pieces of advice that, if followed well, should help to keep your manuscript from becoming a gargantuan, unwieldy beast of high-minded over-description and vocabulary flaunting. Being a writer is not about proving how well you can use words. It's about communication.
Posted from http://crows.dreamwidth.org.