✎ on writing on writing

Good writers move up and down the ladder of abstraction. At the bottom are bloody knives and rosary beads, wedding rings and baseball cards. At the top are words that reach for a higher meaning, words like “freedom” and “literacy.” Beware of the middle, the rungs of the ladder where bureaucracy and public policy lurk.

How to Write a Strong, Compelling Book Hook

Once, in an early research seminar, a classmate asked how you knew when you were done researching. The professor said “when all the sources start saying the same thing.”

converting similes to metaphors when possible—saying something is something else is more powerful than saying it’s like something else.

I read a lot that was repetitive. I still felt like it was worth it. It took time to learn and absorb the material, especially the science, so reading the same thing ten times would drill that into me more. But also, that’s how you learn what is a cliche. You start to realize: Everyone says this, so I won't say it the same way.

I suggest thinking of revision not as a single sweeping process but as a series of distinct drafts, (seven of them, cough cough ) each with a specific purpose. By focusing only on the story, or only on the characters, we avoid that overwhelming feeling of needing to fix everything at once, pinballing from clunky sentence to missing scene to Mom’s-g... See more