Actions, Not State Of Mind
Actions, Not State Of Mind “Be sure not to discuss your hero’s state of mind. Make it clear from his actions.”–Anton Chekhov
Footprints Of Your Characters In The Snow
Footprints Of Your Characters In The Snow “Remember: Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations. Plot is observed after the fact rather than before. It cannot precede action. It is the chart that remains when an action is through. That is all Plot ever should be. It is human desire let run, running, and reaching a goal. It cannot be mechanical. It can only be…
Cognizant Day Dreaming Escape
Cognizant Day Dreaming “They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”–Edgar Allan Poe
Chemistry Department Short Stories
Chemistry Department Short Stories “I think I succeeded as a writer because I did not come out of an English department. I used to write in the chemistry department. And I wrote some good stuff. If I had been in the English department, the prof would have looked at my short stories, congratulated me on my talent, and then showed me how Joyce or Hemingway handled the same elements of the short story. The prof would have placed me in…
Fortunate Moments Of Arduous Contrivance
Fortunate Moments Of Arduous Contrivance “The writing of solid, instructive stuff fortified by facts and figures is easy enough. There is no trouble in writing a scientific treatise on the folk-lore of Central China, or a statistical enquiry into the declining population of Prince Edward Island. But to write something out of one’s own mind, worth reading for its own sake, is an arduous contrivance only to be achieved in fortunate moments, few and far in between. Personally, I would…
Quality Of Inadequate Sentences
Quality Of Inadequate Sentences “And so too, in later years, when I began to write a book of my own, and the quality of some sentences seemed so inadequate that I could not make up my mind to go on with the undertaking. I would find the equivalent in Bergotte. But it was only then, when I read them in his pages, that I could enjoy them; when it was I myself who composed them, in my anxiety that they…