What does it take to write well? Check out these eight pieces of advice from eight famous writers.
Don’t loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don’t get it you will nonetheless get something that looks remarkably like it. — Jack London
London makes a solid point: If you sit around twiddling your thumbs waiting for inspiration to strike you like a bolt of lightning, you are probably going to be waiting for a long time. A very long time. Good writers never wait for inspiration; they go out and find it. Jack London was not only a prolific writer, the author of literary masterpieces like “The Call of the Wild” and “White Fang,” he also knows a thing or two about relentlessly pursuing inspiration. He’s found inspiration for some of his most famous stories in his experience mining for gold during the Klondike Gold Rush, his stint as a foreign war correspondent during the Russo-Japanese War, and time spent in the South Pacific.
Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia. — Kurt Vonnegut
Taken from Vonnegut’s “8 Basics of Creative Writing,” which feature true gems of wisdom, this piece of practical advice touches on the anxious desire of young writers to please absolutely everyone. Not only not feasible, it will degrade the quality of your writing. When typing out his literary masterpiece “Slaughterhouse Five,” Vonnegut most likely knew that his protagonist Billy Pilgrim’s adventures on the extraterrestrial planet of Tralfamadore probably wouldn’t please everyone. But he kept writing anyway.
Notice how many of the Olympic athletes effusively thanked their mothers for their success? “She drove me to my practice at four in the morning,” etc. Writing is not figure skating or skiing. Your mother will not make you a writer. My advice to any young person who wants to write is: leave home. — Paul Theroux
Remember when we told you that you shouldn’t sit around waiting for inspiration, and that you needed to go out and find it? Well, in order to do so, you are probably going to need to leave the comforts of your own home. From Jack Kerouac to Hunter S. Thompson, dozens of famous writers have found the inspiration for truly great stories while on the road. A great American travel writer, Theroux himself has found inspiration for many of his works on his journeys to far-flung corners of the world, from his travels from Boston to Uruguay via train to his road trip from Cairo to Cape Town to his kayaking trip through the South Pacific.
Beware of a scene that becomes too dear to you, dearer than the rest. It will usually be found that it is out of drawing. –- John Steinbeck
Never get too emotionally attached to anything you write, and if you do, beware! Good writing also means good editing, and as Steinbeck advises, you can’t be too emotionally invested if you want to be able to make effective cuts.
Never use jargon words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally, judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass. — David Ogilvy
If your reader thinks you are a pretentious ass, to use the words of Ogilvy, you are probably off to a bad start. You want your readers to like you.
I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide. — Harper Lee
Not everyone is going to love your writing. And the people who don’t love it certainly won’t be afraid to day so. As renowned American novelist Lee advises, you need a thick skin to survive. Don’t believe us? Ask any one of the writers now situated in the echelons of literary history, from Vladimir Nabokov to George Orwell. Just take a peek at a publisher’s criticism of Nabokov’s “Lolita”: “Overwhelmingly nauseating, even to an enlightened Freudian … the whole thing is an unsure cross between hideous reality and improbable fantasy. It often becomes a wild neurotic daydream. I recommend that it be buried under a stone for a thousand years.” Luckily, Nabokov had a thick hide and didn’t take the publisher’s words to heart. The book wasn’t buried under a stone for a thousand years, but rather went on to become a literary masterpiece. Lee himself also faced quite a great deal of adversity when trying to get published.
Do back exercises. Pain is distracting. — Margaret Atwood
Writing advice isn’t just meant to be esoteric. It should also be practical. Atwood has spent a good portion of her life hunched over writing away, considering she has published upwards of 70 novels. If her back can hold up through it all, yours can too. If you’re in pain, stop griping and head to yoga. A few downward-facing dogs will do your back a lot of good.
Don’t take anyone’s writing advice too seriously. — Lev Grossman
Last but not least, keep in mind that we’ve compiled a list of advice here, not absolute commandments! There are no end all, be all rules to writing, and you certainly shouldn’t take other writers’ advice as such. For one final quote, keep these words of Steinbeck in mind: “If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another. The formula seems to lie solely in the aching urge of the writer to convey something he feels important to the reader.” The bottom line? It’s all about the magic, and telling something that needs to be told — never rules.