Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style

True action combines realization—when a character is “impressed”—and acting on it in a way that makes a difference to the character’s life or others.

Dialogue is the most pictorial component of ordinary prose.* Even veteran writers have to work on the mechanics of dialogue. A good conversation on the page can look like a tennis match. One swings. The other swings back. No speaker attributions. Just the ball of dialogue going back and forth.

So a writer is someone who is willing to be uncomfortable enough—or is uncomfortable enough by nature—to wonder where people are, where they’re going, and why they’re going there. A writer is willing to take risks for that wondering. A writer cares that much about his or her subject.

The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake.108

You take an issue about which you feel urgency, mix it with your experience, add the imaginative “what if,” and whammy, you’ve got ammunition for a book.

Be kind to yourself. Give yourself room. There are years to go. Don’t pummel yourself with expectation. Go easy. Your material will eventually find its way to voice.

Writing is a generosity, even to yourself.

Vonnegut felt so strongly that passion about people and issues ought to be the prime mover for a writer that he would rather you err on the side of caring passionately vs. writing eloquently:

“Find a subject you care about.”

Sometimes a subject finds you. It is not a matter of seeking what you care about. Something happens right in your face that you end up caring about so fiercely that it becomes integral to your being.