Weekly Notes & Comment on Writing and the Lit’ry Life
MONDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2016
What’s the Story?
Welcome to the first edition of The Elements of Writing’s new email newsletter. E-Memo will take on a different topic each week, offering tips and commentary about the challenges of writing and the lit’ry life.
What is The Elements of Writing, you ask?
In chemistry, we learn how a small number of basic elements combine to create the infinite complexity of the world. In The Elements of Writing, we explore how a small number of simple skills and maneuvers can help you create clear, engaging, and energetic writing. Every element of writing is simple and intuitive. In fact, you probably know—or have a glimmer of understanding—of most of these skills. You just need someone to make these skills clear, to show how and when to use them.
Each week’s E-Memo includes a brief discussion of a topic of interest to writers, links to three pieces you might find interesting, and a quotation that we find inspiring or useful. This week we explore the core element of writing—storytelling.
Consider This . . .
- DALE CARNEGIE’S APPROACH TO STORYTELLING: When you go to your local bookstore, you can thank Dale Carnegie for the vast selection of self-help books. In his bestsellers How To Win Friends and Influence People and How To Stop Worrying and Start Living, Carnegie outlined a philosophy of positive thinking that has changed millions of lives. At the center of Carnegie’s approach is storytelling. A simple exercise offers an effective strategy to tell your story, wherever you are and whatever you want to accomplish. (READ MORE)
- THE POLAROID PRINCIPLE: Too often, writers struggle to get everything just right, right away. They have a great story to tell but get stuck on particular sections. Forget about getting everything right, right away. It cannot happen. As Papa Hemingway said, all first drafts are s***. Instead, write imperfect sections and then augment and improve them over time. (READ MORE)
- THE PERILS OF GHOSTWRITING: There’s something powerful about giving someone else a voice. At their best, ghostwriters help other people explore important ideas and plumb the depths of their emotions. But not always. Consider the case of a bestselling ghostwriter who was perhaps just a little too good. (READ MORE)
Quote/Unquote
All the other reporters of my generation would come back from an assignment and be done with their piece in a half hour. For the rest of the afternoon they’d be reading books or playing cards or drinking coffee in the cafeteria, and I was always very much alone. I didn’t carry on conversations during those hours. I just wanted to make my article perfect, or as good as I could get it. So I rewrote and rewrote, feeling that I needed every minute of the working day to improve my work. I did this because I didn’t believe that it was just journalism, thrown away the next day with the trash. I always had a sense of tomorrow. I never turned in anything more than two minutes before deadline. It was never easy, I felt I had only one chance. I was working for the paper of record, and I believed that what I was doing was going to be part of a permanent history.
–GAY TALESE, INTERVIEWED IN THE PARIS REVIEW
