Skip to main content

Writing Advice

Writing Advice



There are great books of writing advice on the market. Stephen King's comes to mind for overall helpfulness. Congrats Steve.

https://www.amazon.com/On-Writing-Stephen-King-audiobook/dp/B0000547HM/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwi7yCBhDJARIsAMWFScMVDE6g_iZsEdO7YR_wfLIGoRV90RJvWHbDLBavA-Kp6dFYq_ASyjoaAh8rEALw_wcB&hvadid=241896878058&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9013202&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=5492430218131452558&hvtargid=kwd-2953771056&hydadcr=22565_10346486&keywords=stephen+king+-+on+writing&qid=1615836671&s=books&sr=1-1

Lajos Egre and his The Art of Dramatic Writing is great.

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Dramatic-Writing-Creative-Interpretation/dp/0671213326

As is Christopher Vogler's The Writer's Journey.

https://www.amazon.com/Writers-Journey-Anniversary-Mythic-Structure/dp/1615933158/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=christopher+vogler&qid=1615836591&s=books&sr=1-1

But for me, the best is still Aristotle's Poetics and The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. 

https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936/ref=sr_1_2?crid=318C7T42TZW1G&dchild=1&keywords=hero+with+a+thousand+faces+book&qid=1615836490&s=books&sprefix=hero+with+a+%2Cstripbooks%2C177&sr=1-2

For the screenwriter, Robert McKee is very helpful and so is William Goldman just because he's so readable.

https://www.amazon.com/Story-Robert-McKee-audiobook/dp/B000E6TVNW/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=robert+mckee&qid=1615836710&s=audible&sr=1-1

https://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Screen-Trade-Hollywood-Screenwriting/dp/0446391174/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=screen+trade+goldman&qid=1615836754&s=audible&sr=1-1

All of these books were very helpful to me and several were used by me in classes I taught at MTSU and Watkins Film school. 

The best advice I can give is to read everything in your genre that sells or piques your interest. 

And lately, write as much as you can. Write the books you want to read in the genre you enjoy and keep going. Write for yourself first and don't worry about publishing. Enter contests when you have a finished work you feel good about and have a couple in the drawer that works when someone comes knocking. 


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Dealing with Rejection

 Every writer gets rejected. It doesn't matter how many books you've written or how many you've sold. There's no way of getting around it. I remember an interview with Barbara Streisand, and she said if someone rejected her for a project, the onus was on the producers for failing to recognize her talent and ability. Paraphrasing, “What, are they nuts?” I like that. Editors and producers don’t know what they want until they see it. It’s kind of like pornography as defined by Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, “I know it when you see it.” Gatekeepers don’t know what they want until they see it. However, that doesn’t soften the sting of rejection. Dealing with rejection is a difficult skill, but it is essential. Everyone experiences rejection at some point, whether in the form of a job application not being accepted, a romantic interest was not reciprocating feelings, or a friend group excluding someone. While rejection can be painful, it is essential to remember

Accessing Flow

There was a time that I had to play loud music when I wrote but now accessing the trance-like state is easier. I don't need the music now and instead like my writing room to be quiet.  A favorite book on the subject is  Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi . This study explains how artists find a way to inhabit their work, allowing the most effective and affecting art they can produce. 

Meanwhile

 Writing your novel can feel nearly impossible, but many techniques can help keep your readers engaged. One such method is using parallel stories, which writers can use to create tension and suspense. An effective way to do this is to end your scenes so that you cut between them at moments that leave your readers hanging. Writers sometimes call this technique “Meanwhile, back at the ranch.” The nickname dates back to silent movies when title cards between scenes signaled transitions. In the earliest days, studios didn’t make new cards for each movie but used a set of stock cards: “One Year Later,” “Comes the Dawn,” or “Wedding Bells.” “Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch” was the card used most often when the action, for example, cut away from the heroine being tied to a log just as the villain turned on the sawmill. The literary version of this technique dates back to at least Homer. Still, it was probably perfected in the nineteenth century when newly popular magazines serialized novels.