Can Writing Be Dangerous? (Spoiler: It Already Is)
Saunders describes reading student novels that churn their wheels endlessly, stuck in exposition, no escalation in sight. I’ve written a lot of stuff like that. It’s not enough that things keep happening. The things that happen need to build on each other and intensify, like a snowball growing in size and speed as it pursues some Looney Tunes chara... See more
Justin • George Saunders on REVISION and CAUSALITY
- Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
- Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
- Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
- Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.
- Start as close to the end as possib
Maria Popova • Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 Tenets of Storytelling
Students at NYU asked the creators of South Park the million-dollar question:
“What makes a good story?”
They gave one of the best explanations of story I’ve heard:
“If we can take the beats of your outline, and the words ‘and then’ belong between those beats… you got something pretty boring.
What should happen between every beat you’ve written... See more
(A linked pair of writing dictums: “Don’t make things happen for no reason” and “Having made something happen, make it matter.”)
George Saunders • A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
To write a story that works, that moves the reader, is difficult, and most of us can’t do it. Even among those who have done it, it mostly can’t be done. And it can’t be done from a position of total control, of flawless mastery, of simply having an intention and then knowingly executing it. There’s intuition involved, and stretching—trying things
... See more