LateNightHacking Louis My Writing

Auth

from "Sometimes The Magic Works: Lessons From a Writing Life"

1. Write what you know.
2. Your characters must behave in a believeable fashion.
3. A protagonist must be challenged by a conflict that requires resolution.
4. Movement equals growth; growth equals change; without change, nothing happens.
5. The strength of the protagonist is measured by the threat of the antagonist.
6. Show, don't tell.
7. Avoid the grocery list approach to describing characters.
8. Characters must always be in a story for a reason.
9. Names are important.
10. Don't bore the reader.

Other comments from the book:

• Don't settle for a beginning that doesn't feel strong and compelling, or an ending that doesn't completely satisfy.

Final admonishments:

• If you do not hear music in your words, you have put too much thought into your writing and not enough heart.
• If you do not ever wonder what happened to your characters after you stopped writing about them, you did not care enough about them in the first place and do not deserve to know.
• If you think that by having published you will become a happier person, you are mistaken. If you think that the finished book is of greater value than what you learned from the writing process, you are mistaken yet again. If you think the acquisition of money and fame is the most important reason for writing and publishing, you need an attitude adjustment.
• If you do not proof your work sufficiently, both as to content and grammar, you must not count on anyone else doing the job for you. You have a better chance of winning the Pulitzer.
• If you are ever completely satisfied with something you have written, you are setting your sights too low. But if you can’t let go of your material even after you have done the best that you can with it, you are setting your sights too high.
• If you do not love what you do, if you are not appropriately grateful for the chance to create something magical each time you sit down at the computer or with pencil and paper in hand, somewhere along the way your writing will betray you.
• If you don’t think there is magic in writing, you probably won’t write anything magical.
• If anything in your life is more important than writing — anything at all — you should walk away now while you still can. Forewarned is forearmed. / For those who cannot or will not walk away, you need only remember this. / Writing is life. Breathe deeply of it.