WRWA Newsletter.pub - Wisconsin Writers Association

Page 17
Midnight Musings by Bill Nelson A Handfull of Gems for Resourceful Writers
“Every paragraph, every sentence,
every word must carry its weight—
must do a job.”
That’s a snippet from Paul Raymond
Martin’s The Writer’s Little Instruction
Book, one I copied in a notebook and
later posted on my computer.
As a lifelong writer, I’ve kept an
ever-growing notebook of written and
spoken wisdom on wowing—or at least
intriguing—readers. It’s a connection
that starts by impressing an editor and
earning publication.
The insights might come from a TV or radio interview with
an author. Or a magazine or newspaper feature on or by a
writer. Or an informational piece on the Internet.
Sometimes, in my next stint at the keyboard and if the project
warrants it, I’ll incorporate one of the concepts.
So, here’s a sampling of the pearls of wisdom highlighted
in my notebook over the years:
Don’t be impatient. Writing takes a long time and is a LIFE-
TIME COMMITMENT. If that’s your inclination, keep at
it. FOUR of our deepest desires are to think well of ourselves;
to have others think well of us; to have things to
look forward to; and to be constantly challenged. Writing
delivers all FOUR.
Good writers see the world as their journalism laboratory, a
storehouse of article/story ideas. They have an eye for the
offbeat and they’re voracious collectors of information,
which means that they take notes like crazy.
They immerse themselves in the story/article. They live it,
breathe it, dream it. They plan and rehearse the story passionately,
writing it in their minds, considering their options,
always looking for new directions and fresh information.
“Seize the subject,” a Roman statesman once
said, “and the words will follow.”
They love to tell stories. They are constantly searching for
the human element, for voices that enliven the writing.
Figure out the obvious way to write an article/story. Then
don’t write it that way. In other words, when others zig,
that’s often a good time to zag.
Art requires an instinctive knowledge of what to include and
what to leave out. (Luckily, you get better as your experience
grows.)
Good writers understand that an important part of the writing
process is the mechanical drudgery of organizing the ma-
terial. They respond to this by developing careful filing
systems and plotting out the basic course of their material
early in the process.
They regularly rewrite. They love computers because they
permit maximum playfulness during revision. They can
move paragraphs around, invert word order for emphasis,
find stronger verbs and occasionally purge the entire story
to achieve a fresh start. As you’ve heard several times in
Midnight Musings, good writers tend to be Bleeders, not
Speeders. Hemingway put it nicely when he said, “Easy
writing makes for hard reading.”
To amplify Paul Raymond Martin’s advice, cut out every
unnecessary word, phrase, sentence and paragraph. Except
for the first few takes of Genesis, every story ever
written would be better if it was 10% shorter. Remember,
too, that personal is better than impersonal; simple forms
are best (limit the use of words bearing prefixes and suffixes),
and short is better than long. Another tip: Listen to
what your ears tell you. They’re a great ally to the eyes.
(Read your work aloud.)
Good writers take chances in the writing. They love the surprising
and the unconventional approach. They prefer
failing in print from time to time because those failures
represent the price of inventiveness.
Remember, too, that good writing, like music, has rhythm.
Vary your sentence lengths and structures. Short, punchy
anecdotes, strong quotes and, where appropriate, a touch
of humor help keep the reader reading. An old-time city
editor once wrote: “Writers must learn to avoid adjectives
and to swear by the little verbs that bounce and leap and
swim and swoop.”
Yes, it’s true. The standards of skilled writers grow higher and
higher so that early drafts seem painfully weak and incomplete.
But that adds to their impetus in tackling subsequent
drafts.
Fiction has its origins in personal experience. It may be necessary,
however, to modify that experience to make it usable.
Also, fiction must grow toward universality—an
I’ve-experienced-that-too-feeling—even though the piece
is based in personal experience.
All writers, even the most successful, need editors to provide
objectivity and another viewpoint.
Stories/articles are never really finished until they are published.
All good writing is in some sense experimental, which makes
writers creative people and their profession constantly
challenging. #
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