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There are some things that I would feel naked without having with me at all times. Here is my list of my writing must-haves:
1. At least one notebook (but very often more).
2. A pen, pencil and highlighter.
3. My Macbook when I have access to WIFI.
4. My digital camera. (After missing what will probably be a once-in-my-lifetime event of snapping a pic of the most gorgeous, never ending and brightest rainbow ever seen, I don’t want to miss nature’s special moments ever again!).
What are your writing must-haves that you lug around with you everywhere just in case you get struck by a moment of inspiration?
*** Feline friend is optional.
Click here or scroll…Palm Sunday (New York: Dial Press, 1999), 65-72.
How to Write With Style
by Kurt Vonnegut
Newspaper reporters and technical writers are trained to reveal almost nothing about themselves in their writings. This makes them freaks in the world of writers, since almost all of the other ink-stained wretches in that world reveal a lot about themselves to readers. We call these revelations, accidental and intentional, elements of style.
These revelations tell us as readers what sort of person it is with whom we are spending time. Does the writer sound ignorant or informed, stupid or bright, crooked or honest, humorless or playful– ? And on and on.
Why should you examine your writing style with the idea of improving it? Do so as a mark of respect for your readers, whatever you’re writing. If you scribble your thoughts any which way, your readers will surely feel that you care nothing about them. They will mark you down as an egomaniac or a chowderhead — or, worse, they will stop reading you.
The most damning revelation you can make about yourself is that you do not know what is interesting and what is not. Don’t you yourself like or dislike writers mainly for what they choose to show you or make you think about? Did you ever admire an emptyheaded writer for his or her mastery of the language? No.
So your own winning style must begin with ideas in your head.
1. Find a subject you care about
Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.
I am not urging you to write a novel, by the way — although I would not be sorry if you wrote one, provided you genuinely cared about something. A petition to the mayor about a pothole in front of your house or a love letter to the girl next door will do.
2. Do not ramble, though
I won’t ramble on about that.
3. Keep it simple
As for your use of language: Remember that two great masters of language, William Shakespeare and James Joyce, wrote sentences which were almost childlike when their subjects were most profound. “To be or not to be?” asks Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The longest word is three letters long. Joyce, when he was frisky, could put together a sentence as intricate and as glittering as a necklace for Cleopatra, but my favorite sentence in his short story “Eveline” is this one: “She was tired.” At that point in the story, no other words could break the heart of a reader as those three words do.
Simplicity of language is not only reputable, but perhaps even sacred. The Bible opens with a sentence well within the writing skills of a lively fourteen-year-old: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
4. Have guts to cut
It may be that you, too, are capable of making necklaces for Cleopatra, so to speak. But your eloquence should be the servant of the ideas in your head. Your rule might be this: If a sentence, no matter how excellent, does not illuminate your subject in some new and useful way, scratch it out.
5. Sound like yourself
The writing style which is most natural for you is bound to echo the speech you heard when a child. English was Conrad’s third language, and much that seems piquant in his use of English was no doubt colored by his first language, which was Polish. And lucky indeed is the writer who has grown up in Ireland, for the English spoken there is so amusing and musical. I myself grew up in Indianapolis, where common speech sounds like a band saw cutting galvanized tin, and employs a vocabulary as unornamental as a monkey wrench.
In some of the more remote hollows of Appalachia, children still grow up hearing songs and locutions of Elizabethan times. Yes, and many Americans grow up hearing a language other than English, or an English dialect a majority of Americans cannot understand.
All these varieties of speech are beautiful, just as the varieties of butterflies are beautiful. No matter what your first language, you should treasure it all your life. If it happens to not be standard English, and if it shows itself when your write standard English, the result is usually delightful, like a very pretty girl with one eye that is green and one that is blue.
I myself find that I trust my own writing most, and others seem to trust it most, too, when I sound most like a person from Indianapolis, which is what I am. What alternatives do I have? The one most vehemently recommended by teachers has no doubt been pressed on you, as well: to write like cultivated Englishmen of a century or more ago.
6. Say what you mean
I used to be exasperated by such teachers, but am no more. I understand now that all those antique essays and stories with which I was to compare my own work were not magnificent for their datedness or foreignness, but for saying precisely what their authors meant them to say. My teachers wished me to write accurately, always selecting the most effective words, and relating the words to one another unambiguously, rigidly, like parts of a machine. The teachers did not want to turn me into an Englishman after all. They hoped that I would become understandable — and therefore understood. And there went my dream of doing with words what Pablo Picasso did with paint or what any number of jazz idols did with music. If I broke all the rules of punctuation, had words mean whatever I wanted them to mean, and strung them together higgledy-piggledy, I would simply not be understood. So you, too, had better avoid Picasso-style or jazz-style writing, if you have something worth saying and wish to be understood.
Readers want our pages to look very much like pages they have seen before. Why? This is because they themselves have a tough job to do, and they need all the help they can get from us.
7. Pity the readers
They have to identify thousands of little marks on paper, and make sense of them immediately. They have to read, an art so difficult that most people don’t really master it even after having studied it all through grade school and high school — twelve long years.
So this discussion must finally acknowledge that our stylistic options as writers are neither numerous nor glamorous, since our readers are bound to be such imperfect artists. Our audience requires us to be sympathetic and patient readers, ever willing to simplify and clarify — whereas we would rather soar high above the crowd, singing like nightingales.
That is the bad news. The good news is that we Americans are governed under a unique Constitution, which allows us to write whatever we please without fear of punishment. So the most meaningful aspect of our styles, which is what we choose to write about, is utterly unlimited.
8. For really detailed advice
For a discussion of literary style in a narrower sense, in a more technical sense, I recommend to your attention The Elements of Style, by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White. E.B. White is, of course, one of the most admirable literary stylists this country has so far produced.
You should realize, too, that no one would care how well or badly Mr. White expressed himself, if he did not have perfectly enchanting things to say.
In Sum:
1. Find a subject you care about
2. Do not ramble, though
3. Keep it simple
4. Have guts to cut
5. Sound like yourself
6. Say what you mean
7. Pity the readers
Let’s say you’re like me and the muse only visits you sporadically. How do you make the most of the ideas that come your way and maximize on their full potential? Here’s a fun and easy exercise I learned while reading Make a Real Living as a Freelance Writer by Jenna Glatzer:
1. Begin with something you have some degree of experience on. Start with a topic that you feel comfortable with. It doesn’t have to be specific or complicated. Something simple like diabetes, Golden Retrievers or Automotive repairs is a great central topic.
2. Branch your topic off to the main markets. With that topic as a starting point, think of how you can market your topic to different audiences (ex. how would you slant the topic to appeal to Men’s magazines, Women’s magazines, Health magazines, Entertainment magazines, Parenting mags, etc.). For instance, say my topic of expertise is dogs. My slant to a Men’s mag might include an idea like “How to Tell What Kind of Woman She is By the Dog She Has”. My slant to a women’s mag could be an idea like “Why My Dog Understands Me Better than My Man”. A slant to a health-focused publication might include an angle like “How Golden Retrievers are Helping the Disabled Regain a Sense of Independence”. My entertainment slant would be “Pets of the Stars”. For the parenting slant something like “Why the Golden Retriever Makes a Great First Family Pet”. This is a simple and fun exercise that gets you thinking outside of your normal comfort zone. If all you ever write for and pitch to are health mags, this will give you an easy way to see the potential for using your topic in all kinds of magazines.
3. Really Think Outside the Box. Look at your topic in a way you’ve never seen it covered from before. Choose a bizarre angle. This will really get your mind reaching far to generate new ideas. “Golden Retrievers in Space” or “Bark Interpretation of the Golden Retriever”. The idea here is just to think far beyond the topics that have already been covered and get you to pull out fresh, original ideas.
I think this can serve as a great brainstorming tool when we are looking for ideas. Not only will it allow us to write about something we have an interest in, but it will help us find new angles for our topic.
Definitely pick up Jenna’s book. It’s full of really useful and practical exercises.
see more dog pictures
Sometimes as writers, no matter how hard we try, the words just don’t come. We have the idea in our heads, but for some frustrating reason, they never get translated onto paper (or onto the web). This is when I like to sweep the words aside and do something completely creative that requires the use of not a single word.
What is it? Photography.
I am not a good photographer, nor do I even know how to use all of the settings on my camera. As a matter of fact, I don’t even know what half the buttons are for. All I do is see something I am inspired by and “click” it, hoping that the picture speaks for itself. Usually I go back and take a look at what I’ve captured and about 50% of the time, the pics convey the impression I was going for.
Doing this activity helps my brain stay creative, yet also spurs another kind of simultaneous creativity that does not require the puzzling together of words.
Finding a non-writing activity that helps you stay creative is important when you need some inspiration. If photography isn’t your thing, consider painting, drawing, coloring, sculpture, collage, scrapbooking, playing an instrument, meditating, practicing yoga, you get the idea. Anything that forces your mind to work in a different but equally creative way will help you gain perspective on your writing and get those juices flowing.
