Robert Butler talks about how art does not originate in the mind. He states that art originate in the core of a person. He states that you cannot arrive at good art if you are trying to think to that end. Now, if you have been listening to me for quite a long time, you know that I don't like to make writing or storytelling into something that is mystical. Though I have run into stories and writing that seem to rote, I think that Robert Butler's approach and philosophy on art misunderstands art, ...
Oct 12, 2020•15 min
Samuel Delany, a science fiction author, once said that writing is more about what to omit from your writing. He states that most writing advice you receive is about what you should not do. Though I don't disagree with this second statement, I disagree with this idea that the core of writing is getting rid of things. This does not seem to make sense to me. If the core of good writing is what we should get rid of, isn't it the case that that this should make up the bulk of our writing? On Today's...
Oct 09, 2020•15 min
Lisa Dordal gives the specific piece of advice that writers should sets aside a specific day for reading and writing instead of trying to write every day. I don't think this is just a piece of writing advice, but a piece of advice we can apply across all types of platforms. Today, on How to Write Good, I am going to talk about whether I think this piece of advice is good or not, and why or why not. My Book: https://amzn.to/31UcCPg My Newsletter: danielpoppie.com/newsletter My Website: www.daniel...
Oct 08, 2020•7 min
Denis Johnson gives the advice that you should build yourself up to the actual act of writing. Johnson does this by what he calls "tinkering." He takes time to play around with specific things within his writing, whether that be the voice a a character, dialogue, setting, etc. . . On Today's episode of How to Write Good, we are going to be talking about whether this writing advice is good or bad. My Book: https://amzn.to/31UcCPg My Newsletter: danielpoppie.com/newsletter My Website: www.danielpo...
Oct 07, 2020•10 min
Cormac McCarthy has a piece of writing advice that says you should write everything, even scenes you are not going to use. Now, Cormac McCarthy is a good write, so we should look into his writing advice. On today's episode of How to Write Good, we are going to talk about whether this piece of advice is good or not. My Book: https://amzn.to/31UcCPg My Newsletter: danielpoppie.com/newsletter My Website: www.danielpoppie.com HTWG Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/howtowritegood HTWG Twitter: https...
Oct 06, 2020•11 min
Anthony Doerr gives an interesting piece of writing advice. He says that we should work in short chapters. His reason for doing this is because it is easier to work in short chapters. In this week's episode of How to Write Good, we are going to talk about if working in short chapters is better than working in long chapters, and why. My Book: https://amzn.to/31UcCPg My Newsletter: danielpoppie.com/newsletter My Website: www.danielpoppie.com HTWG Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/howtowritegood H...
Oct 05, 2020•11 min
Katherine Mansfield has a specific piece of writing advice that we are going to talk about today: "Writing anything is better than writing nothing" (Or something to that effect. Is it better to write anything, even if that thing is bad, or should be only be writing something that is good. We know what Katherine Mansfield's opinion is, but is when he analyze that piece of advice, is it shown to be a good piece of advice. That is what we are going to be talking about on How to Write Good today. My...
Oct 02, 2020•13 min
Kill your darlings. This is one of the most popular pieces of writing advice of all time. I don't know why this specific piece of writing advice rose to the top out of the entire book Stephen King's writing advice, but it is one of the biggest. Now, Stephen King does know how to write. I have read his writing, and that is clear to see. And I think that what he is trying to say with this piece of writing advice is good, but most people understand this idea as this simple phrase of killing your da...
Oct 01, 2020•11 min
I love dialogue. Have I ever told you I love dialogue, because, dang, I love dialogue. Dialogue is the aspect of writing that sticks out more than anything, and it is the type of writing we remember. What do you remember from the movies? What do people quote from books? Most times it is dialogue. I think the stories we love most come to a head in dialogue. We are all waiting for that great piece of dialogue. Today on How to Write Good, I am going to be talking about a specific strategy you can u...
Sep 30, 2020•11 min
Omit unneeded words. This is a famous piece of writing advice from The Elements of Style by William Strunk, and his little manual on writing might be the most famous book on writing to exist. But is the advice above good advice. On Today's episode of How to write good, I am going to talk about whether we should follow this advice and how we should think about it. My Book: https://amzn.to/31UI7Zg My Newsletter: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/a1r2k2 HTWG Facebook: https://www.face...
Sep 29, 2020•16 min
What is the best part of a book? Or maybe I should ask another question: what is the core of a story? I would say the answer to that question is character. Who am I journeying with? Who am I getting to know. Now, you most likely learned a specific way to describe characters in your stories. That strategy is likely by blocking all the text about when character is introduced. Now, I don't think this is a bad start, but on today's episode of How to Write Good I am going to talk about three strategi...
Sep 28, 2020•14 min
Tension. That is the good stuff. If we can create tension in our stories, we can grab those readers, and if we can grab those readers, we can rule the world with a microphone (Or a piece of paper. Something like that. It doesn't really matter). But if we can create tension in our story, we are another step closer getting readers who love what we are writing. I talked about tension in a past episode, but I wanted to take this episode to talk about how tension starts within a story. My Book: https...
Sep 25, 2020•10 min
We write from two different viewpoints in English. We either write in first person or third person. And some people have very strong feelings about writing in one or the other of these tenses. I don;t really care. I think they both useful, and I am willing to write in either. In this episode of How to Write Good, I am going to be talking about how the reader experiences these two ways of writing. My Book: https://amzn.to/31UI7Zg My Newsletter: danielpoppie.com/newsletter My Website: www.danielpo...
Sep 24, 2020•15 min
This is a piece of life advice, but it is also something that is good to remember when you are writing: fall in love with learning. Benjerman Frankerlman once said that if you want to be remembered you either need to do something worth writing about or write something worth reading. Since we are not in the business of doing something worth remembering, we are left with the latter option. We need to find a way to write something worth reading. Now, we could come up with a whole bunch of BS (Bolog...
Sep 23, 2020•8 min
I was going to make this episode about how to finish your book. In the future, I will actually make an episode about that, but when I was going through this topic, I found I had something I needed to say about the act of writing itself. Specifically, I thought it was very important to explain why I think people get frustrated with writing. Now, this isn't the only reason, but I think this is the main reason people get frustrated. And the good thing about this frustration is that you can do somet...
Sep 22, 2020•16 min
Cowboy hats. Metal walls with rivets. Redshirts. Duels. Towering skycrapers. There are many tropes that show up in stories. Where these show up depends up which type of story they are in. Because these things have been used over and over again, people have learned to hate them. But if you are one of those people who hate tropes, I think you should reconsider your attitude toward them. Tropes can be extremely useful, and on today's episode of How to Write Good, I am going to tell you exactly why ...
Sep 21, 2020•15 min
What shoot you shoot for when writing? What is the goal of the writing? My first answer to that question would be to make someone understand what you are thinking. Another way of saying this is that you are trying to express things as clearly as possible. Besides this goal, I have another goal that I think helps writers move from good writers to great writers, and I don't no whether this goal is intuitive or non-intuitive. That goal is to make my writing disappear. I think that the best writing ...
Sep 18, 2020•8 min
I stumbled on a piece of writing advice that rubbed me the wrong way today. The piece of writing advice was that you should write for the sake of writing. Now, this got on my bad side because I believe writing has one very clear goal. That goal is to take what is in my head and put it into another person's head using words. But when I started to think about this advice that said "Write to write," I actually came to the conclusion that I agreed with it. In this episode of How to Write Good, I am ...
Sep 17, 2020•8 min
I used to write on a boom and bust model. I would write a lot. Maybe I would stay up most of the write. I would have a surge of inspiration, and then I would have long periods where I would not write. And I can tell you, it is not a very effective model because you can go for loooooong stretches without writing. I did this because I wanted to wait until I felt like writing. I wanted to wait until inspiration came to me. In some sense, I was waiting for the gift of the muse. Now, we all know ther...
Sep 16, 2020•10 min
You ever read one of those books that almost forces you to finish it. I have read those books as well. I have stayed up late into the night so that I could finish a book. I love books like this. I think most people like books like this. But as writers, how do we learn to be writers who can grab readers attentions in this way. It think that what is happening in the writing is similar to what is happening for movie teasers. That might sound weird, but that is what I am going to be talking about in...
Sep 15, 2020•11 min
Why do people read books? Why do people read books? Fantasy? Escapism? The style of writing? The shape of the story? The reasons people give for why they read and like stories are many. When I look at myself to determine why I read stories, these ideas come to my mind as well. But as I have continued to think about why a people read stories, another idea has come to my mind. Something has risen to the top as making the most sense. In this episode of How to Write Good, I am going to talk about wh...
Sep 14, 2020•8 min
Have you ever written or plotted out a book and when you went through that writing later, if felt disjointed or did not make sense together. I think this happens to everyone at some point for various reasons, and I think that there is a strategy that can help you connect plot points of your story together in a way that will make them flow. I think this strategy will help your plot points be more organic. Today on How to Write Good, I am going to be talking about the way I develop my plot, and I ...
Sep 11, 2020•11 min
I want to be a better writer. You want to be a better writer. We all want to be better writers. It is a long process. Some think it is an arduous process (Writing hasn't really felt arduous to me in a long time. I love it). It can by annoying. Sometimes we don't want to do what we need to do to be a better writing. But we can be better writer, and that is a good thing. In this episode, I am going to be talking about four things I think you need to do to be a better writer. But I am not just goin...
Sep 10, 2020•12 min
I think it is very important to know that if you want to be successful in writing, you will need others around you for support. I don't know how you could do it alone. And if you think you could be successful as a creative all alone, just try doing it without any fans. That fact that you need other people is something you will learn as you make your creative journey. But doing something creative, especially writing, is something I believe you do yourself. I believe that good art is the result of...
Sep 09, 2020•12 min
I do not like modern art. I think most of it is rubbish. I think most of it has very little value. Did I mention I don't like modern art? Most of the time I want to dismiss modern art without giving it any chance. The issue is that I know deep down inside that even the worst art can have some value in it. Today in How to Write Good, I am going to art about the value of bad art (even though I really don't want to). My Book: https://amzn.to/31UcCPg My Newsletter: danielpoppie.com/newsletter My Web...
Sep 08, 2020•14 min
Writing follows language. This is one of my writing rules. Writing follows language, but writing is not the same thing as language. Though I have given the advice of speak what you want to write and then just write it, I am aware that it is important to develop what you are putting down on paper. In this episode, I am going to be talking about the differences I see between writing and speaking. I think it is important to look at the differences between these two things. Since writing is based on...
Sep 07, 2020•9 min
I have run into conversations where people talk about how Star Wars came together into a good movie by pure luck. George Lucas somehow caught lightning in a bottle. In some ways, it wasn't even his hard work that made that first trilogy great. I don't know about that because I don't know enough about film making to make that assessment. What I do know is that writing a book is not based on luck. And that is what I am going to be talking about this episode. My Book: https://amzn.to/31UcCPg My New...
Sep 04, 2020•8 min
Maybe you are one of those writers who has been working on an epic fantasy story for the last twenty-five years. Maybe you are one of those writers who changes the same word a dozen times. You probably have the attitude that everything has to be absolutely perfect. I get this attitude. I used to be so much of a self-critic that I didn't want to show anyone what I was writing. It took me at least a decade before I thought I had something good to push out into the world, but if I had to do it over...
Sep 03, 2020•7 min
It is hard to pick which direction you want to go in your life. For some of us, picking our direction can be excruciating. If you are someone who is thinking about being a writer, this episode if for you. Maybe you are thinking that writing would be a cush job (I kind of think that too), but just because that job seems like it would be a great gig doesn't mean you should necessarily go down that road. In this episode, I am going to talk about some questions you need to ask yourself before you de...
Sep 02, 2020•11 min
Long, long ago in a world that is still under our feet, people did not write. They had no writing system at all. All communication was conveyed either through the spoken words or odd hand signals. At that time, when a person wanted to tell a story, they needed to speak that story. Over the course of history, many different types of writing systems have been developed. We have multiple ways in which we can tell stories. But I think that the original ways in which people told stories can help us u...
Sep 01, 2020•10 min
