“Write in the third person unless a really distinctive first-person voice offers itself irresistibly.”
~ Jonathan Franzen
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✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ Write What You Like The Way You Like
“Write whatever way you like. Fiction is made of words on a page; reality is made of something else. It doesn’t matter how “real” your story is, or how “made up”: what matters is its necessity.” ~ Anne Enright
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ Listening to the Rhythm of Dialogue
“Listen to what you have written. A dud rhythm in a passage of dialogue may show that you don’t yet understand the characters well enough to write in their voices.” ~ Helen Dunmore
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ Be Kind to Yourself
“Do be kind to yourself. Fill pages as quickly as possible; double space, or write on every second line. Regard every new page as a small triumph. ~ Roddy Doyle
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ Stuck? Writer’s Block Rearing its Ugly Head?
“Don’t sit down in the middle of the woods. If you’re lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong. Then take the other road. And/or change the person. Change the tense. Change the opening page.” ~ Margaret Atwood
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ Trying to Capture the Reader’s Attention?
“Hold the reader’s attention. (This is likely to work better if you can hold your own.) But you don’t know who the reader is, so it’s like shooting fish with a slingshot in the dark. What fascinates A will bore the pants off B.” ~ Margaret Atwood
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ Not Using It? File It
“Don’t throw anything away. There’s a reason you wrote it in the first place, even if it doesn’t belong in the piece you’re drafting.’ I keep a folder on my laptop with snippets that have to be cut. After editing one of my novels, I ended up using the pieces in the folder to finish a volume of short stories.” ~ Cherie Dimaline
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ It’s Not All About Writing
You’ve got to get out. Take a walk. At the very least, these days, leave the screen and stand by a window. So much work can happen while you’re not working. I think this is instinctive for some people, but I always have to remind myself; otherwise I end up stuck and hunched and ripping everything in half.”
~Natascha Bruce
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ Overcoming Writer’s Anxiety
“My friend, the incredible and generous poet, Willie Perdomo, once told me to work on my writing in pieces, breaking it down, and do a bit each day. I needed his wisdom. Because I can get overwhelmed. Left to my anxiety, I’ll ambush myself before I even begin because I think I have to know the entire life of a story and that it must be a single breath. But that’s not how we breathe.”
~ Rachel Eliza Griffiths
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ One Page at a Time Adds Up
“Take it a page at a time. Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day. It helps.” ~ John Steinbeck
