The Writing Life Too

The rain has stopped, the snows promised in the Willamette Valley yesterday mostly landed in the higher elevations, and the sky is a smorgasbord of clouds obscuring blue.

I’ve just turned another revised chapter into my editor and am trying to rethink the remaining chapters. As the year winds down, I’m thinking about what I’ve accomplished in the past months, what lies ahead, and the components of the writing life. Years ago I read novelist Oakley Hall’s How Fiction Works and in his introduction he included a list of writing tips. Since I agree with them all, and in fact, many are the basis for what I teach, I thought I’d pass them along.

1. Write every day.
2. Observe and listen.
3. Employ all the senses.
4. Use strong verbs.
5. Detail!
6. A specific always beats an abstraction.
7. Describe in motion.
8. Anglo-Saxon words are usually more effective than romance based.
9. Fiction is dramatization; dramatization is point of view, sense impressions, details, action and dialogue.
10. In dialogue, keep speeches sort.
11. Look for likenesses, parallels, contrasts, antitheses and reversals.
12. Beware the use of habitual case (would) the passive voice and the word there.
13. Plotting is compulsion versus obstacles.
14. In the second draft, start deleting adverbs.
15. Borrow widely, steal wisely.