becoming a better writer
by Alex Burns · updated 20d ago
becoming a better writer
Alex Burns added 20d ago
I have come to the conviction that if you cannot translate your thoughts into uneducated language, then your thoughts were confused. Power to translate is the test of having really understood one's own meaning.
—C.S. Lewis
Alex Burns added 1mo ago
- When All Else Fails, Go to the Movies
“It’s what I call the Don Draper Principle,” says Abbott, “because he always did that on Mad Men . I tend to see something, usually horror, something that completely demands my attention and is very big and spectacle-oriented, because it can knock me out of what I’m thinking about in a good way. Or sometimes it... See morefrom 13 Mystery-Writing Tricks Used by Acclaimed Novelists
Alex Burns added 1mo ago
- Do Your Homework
“I might print out like 100 articles from LexisNexis,” says Attica Locke , who has written a series of novels set in Texas. “As I read them, I began to understand what matters to this community, what’s interesting about this community, what has been a problem in this community, and somehow the crime that this thing is going to be c... See morefrom 13 Mystery-Writing Tricks Used by Acclaimed Novelists
Alex Burns added 1mo ago
- A day job puts you in the path of other human beings. Learn from them, steal from them. I’ve tried to take jobs where I can learn things that I can use in my work later—my library job taught me how to do research, my Web design job taught me how to build websites, and my copywriting job taught me how to sell things with words.
from Steal Like An Artist - a book by Austin Kleon by Austin Kleon
Alex Burns added 1mo ago
- If you’re a young woman who wants to write fiction, it’s useful to read zeitgeist-y contemporary writers like Sally Rooney, Ottessa Moshfegh, Elena Ferrante, and Mary Gaitskill—but you’d be missing a great deal by not reading Clarice Lispector and Edith Wharton.
from Everything I Read in July 2024 by Celine Nguyen
Alex Burns added 1mo ago
“I can feel jealous of David Sedaris’s fame, I can feel like I’ll never get to that point, but I should ask myself: am I doing 15 or 20 full rewrite drafts of my essays? Am I pushing myself to search for a universal feeling, for a moment of poignancy, and for a laugh, all in the same piece? Am I doing what he did, in my own way? No, no, and no. I a
... See morenote · by Salman Ansari on "How to Succeed on Substack"
Alex Burns added 2mo ago
- A large percentage of people’s problems in work, love and life are due to some combination of vagueness and passivity. You don’t know what you want to spend your time on; you don’t know what kind of person you really get along with; you don’t know what kind of clothing looks good to you; you don’t know what you value in a city; you don’t know how t... See more
from why you should write more by Ava
Alex Burns added 2mo ago
- Words are magic. Words are really magic. They add so much. You can take a TikTok video, and you think the TikTok video is the end in itself. You don’t need any gloss on that, but you absolutely do. It’s so much funnier if you can articulate what is embarrassing or weird or impressive about what that person is doing. That is a great hack.
from Looking Closely Is Everything by Craig Mod
Alex Burns added 3mo ago
Alex Burns added 3mo ago
