Your Novel Should Be More Like Moby-Dick
need to have action and information,
Mary Kole • Writing Irresistible Kidlit: The Ultimate Guide to Crafting Fiction for Young Adult and Middle Grade Readers
“Trust your obsessions. This is one I learned more or less accidentally. People sometimes ask whether the research or the idea for the story comes first for me. And I tell them, normally the first thing that turns up is the obsession: for example, all of a sudden I notice that I’m reading nothing but English 17th century metaphysical verse. And I k
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As you're writing, how do you know which thoughts are most valuable? What separates good ideas from bad ones?
My approach is to focus on ideas that are interesting or surprising. These are the ingredients of novelty. Novelty is what keeps readers reading. They tend to be:
My approach is to focus on ideas that are interesting or surprising. These are the ingredients of novelty. Novelty is what keeps readers reading. They tend to be:
- Counter-intuitive
- Counter-narrative
- Shock and awe
- Elegant articulations
Julian Shapiro • Writing Well - Part 2 - Writing First Drafts
1) Don't let AI smooth out your idiosyncrasies. Let your writing stay weird and uniquely yours.
2) Generic content is dying and the burden is on you as the writer to be distinctive.
3) The more personal your writing becomes, the more future-proof it is. Nobody wants to read memoirs from AI, even if they're technically "better."
2) Generic content is dying and the burden is on you as the writer to be distinctive.
3) The more personal your writing becomes, the more future-proof it is. Nobody wants to read memoirs from AI, even if they're technically "better."
David Perell • Tweet
The work itself is not above criticism, but no individual criticism has any impact; at this point, attacking Moby-Dick only reflects the contrarianism of the critic.