Re: OT: Books on writing?

[peregrine@xxxxxxxx]

An editor gave me his slightly scorched copy of Strunk and White in 1974, and I appreciated it as much as any guidance I ever received on writing. I always imagined him rescuing the book from a fire. It was and is that valuable.



I've relied a lot on Hemingway's advice to young writers, too. Paraphrasing: "Start by writing the truest thing you know" about the subject at hand. This assumes you've researched your subject, and further assumes you have a sense for what is true. If you really appreciate Hemingway, it also means you convey these things concisely.



Following on that, I think it was Eudora Welty who wrote about the nature of narrative being not necessarily chronological, but following "the continuous thread of revelation." I love that.



In the newspaper business, brevity is important but so is telling the story. When a reporter would ask me how long the story should be, I liked to share my favorite quote from Lewis Carroll: "Begin at the beginning," the King said gravely, "and go on 'til you come to the end. Then stop!"



I do think it's useful and somewhat inevitable to edit yourself as you go, but you can overdo it and write too self-consciously. Robert Frost spoke about the craft of writing, and how he valued the rules and structure of the English language. Frost compared writing good poetry to an old work horse who has learned to "run light in harness." It's hard to find that balance, and I think the only way is to write a lot.



I try to pour out my thoughts without editing, and I always edit after writing. I agree with Harry that it's the better way, but my self-consciousness inclines me to edit as I go and I sometimes find that hard to resist. It takes longer to edit another person, especially if it's a person you've not edited before. The best compliment I ever received as an editor was this: "You made my story MUCH better, and it still sounds like I wrote it."



I think it may be more useful in the end to read and analyze great writing than to read books ABOUT how to write well, but there is a place for those books. "The aim of all book study is to throw away the book," said a Taoist philosopher named Khieg Alx Diegh. "The goal of every guide should be to negate the need for his function."



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