I have stayed out of this long enough. There is a very small book that was written a long time ago. Every potential serious writer should carry in his or her bag of tricks. I refer to what I lovingly know as "Strunk and White." Its real title is "Elements of Style. Anyone who has taken a serious writing cours should have it. I was trained as a computer enginer. My very first English class was a writing class. Believe me I was surprised that an engineer would need such a book. But it helped me in my 47 years as an engineer. I also have a very nice list of other books that I personally use and give to writers as reference material. Guess whay they are all *free*.
I just keep hopping from place to place.
I never stay too long.
I just keep moving singing a song.
So you better stop me if you want to chat.
Or you will never know where I am at.
I both hate and am obsessed with revising.
William C. Knott, in The Craft of Fiction, cogently observes that "anyone can write--and almost everyone you meet these days is writing. However, only the writers know how to rewrite. It is this ability alone that turns the amateur into a pro."
I constantly remind myself of that quote.
I don't want to be a person that just writes, I want to be a writer that happens to be human (imperfect). That helps me appreciate the value of the rewriting process and not ignore it.
Janet Burroway suggests asking yourself these questions to unearth your weaknesses, in her book Writing Fiction. She also suggests having someone you respect as a writer answer these questions for you as well. These are quite general pitfalls:
What is my story about?
Are there irrelevant scenes?
Why should the reader turn from the first page to the last?
Is it original? (I'll elaborate here. "Almost every writer thinks first, in some way or the other, of the familiar, the usual, the given...comb the work for clichés and labor to find the exact, the honest, and the fresh.")
Is it clear?
Is it self-conscious? [I call this self-indulgent] *see note
Where is it too long?
Where is it underdeveloped in character, imagery, theme?
Where is it too general?
*note: Probably the most famous piece of advice to the rewriter is William Faulkner's "kill all your darlings." When you are carried away with the purple of your prose, the music of your alliteration, the hilarity of your wit, the profundity of your insights, then the chances are that you are having a better time writing than the reader will have reading. No reader will forgive you, and no reader should. Just tell the story. The style will follow of itself if you just tell the story. (p. 338, Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft)
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Best advice on the list:
7. Work on a computer that is disconnected from the internet.
Worst advice on the list (unless you’ve perfected time travel):
1. When still a child, make sure you read a lot of books. Spend more time doing this than anything else.
