Don’t Envy – Improve

A few years ago, when I finished Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin while doing the eleventythousandth revision of my own novel manuscript, I closed her book and looked at mine and thought, “Why bother?” The bother is that I’ve got my own story to tell. It’s not Atwood’s story, or Melville’s or Twain’s, or even yours. You’ve got your own story, too. Because it’s your story, the issue isn’t whether you write as...

Killing clichés

One rule writers learn early is to kill clichés. To prove the point, I will define my terms with a tired trope of the copywriter: cli·ché  /klēˈSHā/ Noun: A phrase or opinion that is overused and betrays a lack of original thought. A very predictable or unoriginal thing or person. If anyone asks why writers should eliminate clichés from their work, the answer is usually brief, to the point, and wrong:...

Many Beginnings

Many writers start from a brilliant opening line – an inspiration to craft an entire story from a dazzling line of prose. Other writers use the opening line as a placeholder, knowing they will revise or replace it when they finish telling the story. Although I prefer the second approach, there is no wrong or right way to write an opening line – truly, deciding must be the best and worst of times for a...

10,000 Hours

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers: The Story of Success, he details the concept of the 10,000-hour rule. That’s a reasonably well-accepted theory that to become thoroughly proficient at something, a person needs to practice for about 10,000 hours. Gladwell’s most famous examples include the Beatles and Bill Gates. Prodigies — the exceptions who prove the rule — are popularly known. However, they...

Beat Your Muse with a Club

Inc. magazine has an interesting profile of the CEO of the country’s largest independent advertising agency in its November issue. Here’s what the reporter took away: Creativity doesn’t need a muse. It needs a drill sergeant. The article is good – worth reading – but doesn’t actually spend much time going into the counterintuitive nature of that headline (my thoughts on the...

Story Masters and Hammer Heads

A couple of years ago, I spent a valuable weekend at a writing workshop, Story Masters, with three terrific authors who are also outstanding teachers: James Scott Bell is a novelist and Writer’s Digest favorite. Donald Maass is a literary agent and author of several outstanding craft books. Christopher Vogler is a story consultant and Hollywood icon for his work interpreting, among other things, Joseph Campbell’s...

Paradox: Limitations Drive Creativity

If I ask you to tell me a story, or to draw me a picture, what’s your first reaction? If you’re like most people, it’s another question: “About what?” Few things are as intimidating as a blank sheet of paper. All the hopes, fears, dreams, tragedies, climaxes, and denouements you plan to spill forth in lyrical and dazzling prose … where, oh where, to begin? That’s one reason prompts are such powerful, proven...

Tick Tock

Author Jody Hedlund – a mom of five who home-schools them – offers solid advice on making time for writing. If she’s doing any, you know her advice must be spot-on: 1. Schedule writing time. 2. Prioritize our activities. 3. Don’t wait for the perfect moment. 4. Plan alone, extended and uninterrupted writing for once a week, if possible. 5. Get your family [or whomever has a claim on your time] behind your writing....