More notes on what I’ve learned about writing

Every year or so, I’ve gathered enough of a collection of notes and perspective and general writing about writing that I want to share here. This is especially geared toward creative and fiction writing, which is decidedly not what I am professionally trained in.

But I’ve always thought of myself as professional writer first, and so I routinely invest time in reading about process.

Below find some links and perspective that I share here likely more for me than anyone.

More:

  • Review these wonderful 39 steps from Frederick Barthelme. Yup, that’s Donald’s younger brother. There are a lot of gems here.
  • Do not save writing for later. The creative is a well and more will come, notes Annie Dillard.
  • “No worthy problem is ever solved in the plane of its original conception.” George Saunders paraphrasing Einstein in this wonderful essay.in media res is the concept of beginning a theater, novel or other medium inside major action. “The principle of in medias res is based on the practice of Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey.”
  • 6 writing rules from George orwellhttps://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/Politics_and_the_English_Language-1.pdf
  • Freytag’s Pyramid 
  • Fichtean Curve 
  • Popular plot structures

The difference between developmental editing and copyediting

https://forge.medium.com/close-proximity-end-result-and-more-redundant-words-to-delete-from-your-writing-3258be693a3d

/tag/writing-advice

Here are some things I’ve learned about being a better writer

Control of plot is essential — Knowing the difference between something happening because of something else or just happening after something else helps you develop an understanding that stories are remembered for plot, not characters. As Alexander Chee puts it: “A single grand action unifies a story more than a single person, the characters memorable for the parts they play inside it.”

https://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/by-writing-goal/write-first-chapter-get-started/4-story-structures-that-dominate-novels

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