Writing suggestions of fourteen writers

1. Finish everything you started writing.

2. stick to it.

3. Wear pajamas all day.

4. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.

5. Stay away from alcohol, sex and drugs at work.

6. Go to work in the morning, take a nap at noon, go to work in the afternoon, then watch the news at six o'clock, and then go back to work until you go to bed. Listen to Schubert before bed. It's best to listen to some songs.

7. If you must read it, in order to motivate yourself, read some biographies of the last crazy writer.

8. You can watch an old Bergman movie on weekends, preferably Mask or Autumn Sonata.

9. Don't go to London. And don't go anywhere else.

Janet. Winterson jeanette winterson

1. Discipline gives people the freedom to create. No discipline means no freedom.

Never stop when you are in trouble. You may not be able to solve the problem. Put it aside and write something else. Don't stop completely.

3. Love your job.

4. Be honest with yourself. If you are not good enough, accept the fact. If the work you do is not good enough, accept it.

5. Don't stick to bad works. If it's bad when it's in the drawer, it's just as bad when it comes out.

6. Ignore those people you don't respect.

7. Ignore those who talk about people by sex. There are still many men who think that women lack that fiery imagination.

8. Be ambitious about your work, not an award.

9. Trust your imagination.

10. Enjoy your work!

Annie. Ann Enright

1. 12 has the worst beginning.

2. The way to write a book is to actually write a book. You can use a pen and type well. Keep writing your words on paper.

Only bad writers think their works are really good.

4. It's hard to describe. Remember that all descriptions are a view of the world. Find your position.

5. Write in any way you like. A novel consists of words on a page; Reality is made up of other things. It doesn't matter how "true" your story is and how you "make it up": what matters is its necessity.

6. Describe things as accurately as possible.

7. Imagine that you are going to die. If you were terminally ill, would you still finish this book? Why not? What bothers this man with only 10 weeks to live is the problem of this book. So change it. Stop arguing with yourself. Change it. Did you get a look at him? It's simple. No one will die.

8. You can do this while drinking whisky.

9. Have fun.

Remember, if you sit at your desk 15 or 20 years, every day, excluding weekends, will change you. That's it. It won't improve your temper, but it will solve something else It makes you more free.

Joyce? Carol. Oz Joyce Carol Oates

1. Don't expect an "ideal reader"-there may be, but he/she is reading other people's things.

Don't expect an "ideal reader"-except yourself, maybe sometime in the future.

3. Be your own editor/commentator. Compassionate but ruthless.

4. Unless you write something very avant-garde-fragmentary, tangled and "obscure"-pay attention to the possibility of segmentation.

Unless you write something very postmodern-self-awareness, self-reference and "provocation"-you should try to use simple and familiar words instead of those multi-syllable "big words".

6. Remember the Oscar? Oscar Wilde said, "A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, while many sincerity is absolutely fatal."

7. Stay relaxed and look forward to it. But-prepare for the worst.

Annie. Pru annie proulx

1. Write slowly and carefully.

In order to ensure that you write slowly, you should write by hand.

3. Write slowly about the topics you are interested in.

4. Expand writing skills through years of extensive reading.

Rewrite and edit until you get the most suitable words/sentences/paragraphs/pages/stories/chapters.

Zadi? Smith zadie smith

1. When you were a child, you should read as much as possible. I spend more time on it than anything else.

As an adult, it is better to try to read your own works like a stranger or even an enemy.

Don't romanticize your career. Either you can write beautiful sentences or you can't. There is no "writer's lifestyle". What matters is what you left on the paper.

4. Avoid weaknesses. But when you do this, don't tell yourself that what you can't do is not worth doing. Don't dress up self-doubt as contempt.

Leave enough time between writing and editing.

6. Avoid factions, gangs and small circles. A group of people cannot make your writing better.

7. Work on a computer that is not connected to the Internet.

8. Ensure the time and space for your writing. Get rid of others, even those who are most important to you.

9. Don't confuse honor with achievement.

10. No matter what kind of veil you wear, tell the truth-but tell the truth. What makes you leave life comes from insatiable sadness.

Jonathan? Franzen jonathan franzen

1. The reader is a friend, not an opponent, not an audience.

2. A novel is not worth writing unless it is for money, if it is not the author's personal adventure in frightening things or unknown fields.

Never use "then" as a conjunction-we have "harmony" to achieve this goal. Replacing it with "then" is a helpless move for lazy or tone-deaf authors to have too many "harmony" on a page.

4. Write in the third person, unless a truly unique first person voice appears irresistibly.

When information becomes free and easy to obtain, a large number of novel studies will depreciate.

6. The purest autobiographical novel needs the purest creation. No one has written a more autobiographical story than Metamorphosis.

7. See more when you are sitting still than when you are chasing.

8. I doubt that people with Internet in the workplace can write good novels.

9. Verbs are seldom interesting.

10. You must love before being heartless.

Neil? Gaiman neil gaiman

1. Write it.

2. connect one word after another. Find the right words and write them down.

3. Finish what you are writing. Whatever you need to do to finish it, finish it.

4. Put it aside. Read it as if you had never read it. Show it to friends who respect their opinions and like this kind of thing.

Remember: when people tell you that something is wrong or doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to correct it, they are almost always wrong.

6. modify it. Remember, sooner or later, before it becomes perfect, you must put it down and continue to write. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep walking.

7. Laugh at your own jokes.

The main rule of writing is that if you are confident enough, you can be allowed to do anything you like. This may be the rule of writing, but also the rule of life. But for writing, this is absolutely correct. ) So when your story needs to be written down, write it down. Write honestly and tell as much as you can. I'm not sure what other rules there are. There are no more important rules.

Hillary? Mantel Hilary Mantel

1. Are you serious? Then find an accountant.

2. Reading writer, dorothea? Brent wrote it. Do as it says, including tasks that you think are impossible. You will especially dislike the suggestion of writing in the morning, but if you can do it, it may be the best thing you can do for yourself. This book is about becoming a writer from the inside out. Many later proposals were born from this. You really don't need any other advice, although "tutorial" books are rarely harmful to you if you want to enhance your self-confidence. The whole book can start with some small writing exercises.

3. Write the book you want to read. If you don't want to read, why do others want to read? Don't write for a perceived audience or market. When your books are finished, they may have disappeared.

If you have a good story idea, don't take it for granted that it must form a narrative. It may be more suitable for writing scripts, movie scripts or poems. Be flexible.

It should be noted that anything that appears before the first chapter can be omitted. Don't put important clues there.

6. The first few paragraphs can often be deleted. Are you dancing kaha or just shuffling?

7. Focus your narrative energy on the change point. This is especially important for historical novels. When your characters enter a new environment, or things around them change, that's when you need to step back and fill in the details in their world. People don't pay attention to their daily environment and daily affairs, so when the author describes these things, it sounds as if they are trying too hard to guide the readers.

8. Description must have its function. It can't just be decorative. It is most effective when it contains human factors; If it is from the perspective of suggestion, it is more effective than the perspective of God. If the description is embellished by the perspective of the person who is observing, it will actually become a part of this person's definition and behavior.

9. If you can't write, leave your desk. Walking, bathing, sleeping, making pies, drawing, listening to music, meditating and exercising; Whatever you do, don't just stand there and get angry with the problem. But don't call or go to parties; If you do that, other people's words will flood where you lost them. Open a gap for them and create space. Be patient.

10. Get everything ready. Every new story has different needs, and there may be reasons to break these and all other rules. Except the first one: if you keep thinking about income tax, you can't dedicate your soul to literature.

Richard. Ford richard ford

1. Marry the person you love and think it's a good idea to be a writer.

2. Don't have children.

3. Don't read your comments.

4. Don't write comments. Your judgment is always affected. )

Don't quarrel with your wife in the early morning or late at night.

6. Don't write while drinking.

7. Don't write to the editor. Nobody cares. )

8. Don't be malicious to your peers.

9. Try to take other people's good luck as an encouragement to yourself.

Zaion? Dale Geoff Dyer

1. Never worry about the commercial possibility of the project. Those things are what agents and editors should worry about-or not. A conversation with my American publisher. Me: "I wrote such a boring book, which has only a little commercial appeal." If you publish it, it will probably cost you your job. " Publisher: "This is exactly why I want to do this job."

2. Don't write in public. In the early 1990s, I went to live in Paris. Common reasons for writers: at that time, if someone saw you writing in an English bar, you would be kicked in the head; In Paris, in cafes ... since then, I have been tired of writing in public places. I feel that writing can only be done in private places, just like other toilet activities.

Don't be the kind of writer who please Nabokov all his life.

4. If you use a computer, please always improve and expand your automatic correction settings. The only reason I'm loyal to my stupid computer is that I put so much creativity into it and created the strongest and largest automatic error correction document in the history of literature. It's perfectly shaped. Just press the keyboard a few times and the spelled words will come out. Ni became Nietzsche, photography became photography, and so on. Genius!

5. Keep a diary. The biggest regret of my writing career is that I never keep a diary or diary.

6. Have regrets. They are fuel. On paper, they burn into desire.

Any time you write, you must have more than one idea at the same time. If I had to choose between writing a book and doing nothing, I would choose the latter. Only when I have the idea of writing two books will I choose to write this one instead of that one. I always want to run away from something.

8. Beware of cliches. Not just Martin? The statements that Aymis declared war on. There are expressions and responses. Statements with observations and ideas, even statements with ideas. Many novels, even many well-written, are formal statements made according to expected sentences.

9. Write every day. Get into the habit of writing your own observations, and gradually it will become instinct. This is the most important rule. Naturally, I will abide by it.

10. Don't ride a bike with the brakes on. If something is too difficult, give up and do something else. Try not to insist. But writing should be persistent. You must insist. In my thirties, I insisted on going to the gym, although I hated it. The purpose of going to the gym is to postpone the day when I won't go. This is what writing means to me: putting off that day, when I will stop writing and fall into deep depression, is tantamount to a perfect blessing.

Sarah. Waters Sarah Waters

1. Crazy reading. But try to read it with an analytical eye-it may be difficult, because the better the novel, the more compelling it is, and the less you will realize its strategy. In any case, it is worthwhile to understand those strategies: sooner or later, they will be used in your own works. I think watching movies is also good. Almost every modern Hollywood blockbuster is long and loose. Try to imagine a much better movie after bold editing, which is an excellent exercise in storytelling art. This reminds me. ...

2. Crazy abridgement. Less is more. I-often read manuscripts-including my own-will come to, for example, the beginning of the second chapter and think, "This is where the novel should start." A lot of information about people and background stories can be conveyed through small details. Your emotional attachment to the scene or chapter will fade as you progress on other stories. Be realistic. in fact ...

3. Take writing as a job. Have discipline. Many writers have a little obsessive-compulsive disorder. Graham. Green writes 500 words a day. Jane. Brady wrote 5000 words before lunch, and then used it to reply to fan mail in the afternoon. I write at least 1000 words a day-sometimes it's easy to do it, and sometimes to tell the truth, it's like constipation, but I will let myself sit at my desk until I write there, because I know, so I push the book forward a little. These 1000 words are probably rubbish-they are often rubbish. However, it is always easier to get back to these rubbish words and make them better.

Writing a novel is neither "self-expression" nor "healing". Novels are for readers, and writing novels is to create effects with skill, patience and selflessness. I think my novel is like a ride in an open-air market: my job is to tie readers to their cars at the beginning of the first chapter, and then let them whiz by in various scenes and surprises, follow a well-designed route and advance at a carefully controlled speed.

5. People who respect you, even small people. In the field of art, as in life, everyone is the hero of his own specific story; It's worth thinking about the stories of your minor characters, even if their stories overlap slightly with your main character's. meanwhile ...

6. Don't accommodate too many narratives. Roles should be personalized, but functional-just like images in painting. Think of hieronymus bosch's "Laughed Christ". In this story, the persevering and suffering Jesus is surrounded by four evil people. Each character is unique, but each character represents a type; Together, they form a narrative, which is more powerful because of such a compact and simple structure. For similar topics ...

7. Don't overdo it. Avoid repetitive sentences, distracting adjectives and useless adverbs. Beginners, in particular, seem to think that writing novels requires a special kind of flowery rhetoric, which is quite different from any language people encounter in their daily lives. This is a misunderstanding of the effect of the novel, which can be eliminated by following the first rule. Like reading some combs? Tobin or Cormac? McCarthy's works, to see how to deliberately create amazing emotional impact with limited vocabulary.

8. Rhythm is very important. Beautiful writing is not enough. Students in writing class may be good at creating pages with superb skills; Sometimes what they lack is the ability to take readers into a long journey with the changes of region, speed and mood. Once again, I find watching movies very helpful. Many novels will want to approach, stay, stay away and move forward in the form of movies.

9. Don't panic. Halfway through the novel, I often experience moments of fear. I think about the nonsense on the screen in front of me, as well as the continuous mocking comments, friends' embarrassment, career failure, shrinking income, selling a house, divorce ... but working hard at such a critical moment always keeps me going to the end. It will help to get away from your desk for a while. Talking about this problem thoroughly can help me remember what I tried to achieve before I met with difficulties. Walking for a long time almost always makes me think about my manuscript in a slightly fresh way. If all else fails, there is prayer. Saint Francis de Cyrus, the patron saint of writers, often helps me out of trouble. If you want to cast a wide net, you can also try Carly Obi, the muse who begged the epic.

10. Talent trumps everything. If you are a really great writer, you don't have to follow these rules. If James. Baldwin felt that he should speed up the pace a little, and it would never be as long and poetic as Giovanni's Room. Without "excessive" writing, we would not have Dickens or Angela? Carter's rich language. If everyone saved the characters, there would be no Wolf Hall ... However, for the rest of us, the rules are still very important. In addition, the key point is that only by understanding the purpose and operation of these rules can you try to break them.

Elmo? Leonard elmore leonard

1. Never start with the weather. You won't read too much if you just want to create an atmosphere instead of writing about people's reactions to the weather. Readers tend to expect characters. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry? Lopez, in his book Dream of the Arctic, has more ways to describe ice and snow than Eskimos. You can make weather forecasts at will.

2. Avoid writing prefaces: They can be annoying, especially prefaces and prefaces after prefaces. But these are generally non-fiction situations. The preface of the novel is a background story, you can put it anywhere. Steinbeck's Sweet Thursday has a preface, but it's okay, because a character in the book tells the essence of my rules. He said, "I like many dialogues in the book. I don't like people telling me what the speaker looks like. " I want to judge his appearance from the way he talks.

Never use verbs other than "say" to convey dialogue. Conversational sentences belong to characters; Verbs are the author's lateral thrust. But talking is far less aggressive than grunting, panting, warning and lying. I noticed that Mary? McCarthy ended a conversation with "she solemnly declared" and had to put down her book and look it up in the dictionary.

Don't use adverbs to modify "say" ... he warned seriously. It is unforgivable to use adverbs in this way (or in any way). So the author exposed himself seriously and used a distracting word, which disrupted the rhythm of the dialogue. A character in one of my books tells how she once wrote a historical legendary novel full of rape and adverbs.

5. Control your exclamation point. You can use two or three words per100000 words. If you are like Tom? Woolf has mastered the trick of playing exclamation points, and you can use them a lot.

6. Never use the words "suddenly" or "in a mess". This rule needs no explanation. I have noticed that writers who use "suddenly" generally lack control when using exclamation points.

7. Use dialects and jargon conservatively. Once you spell the dialogue according to the pronunciation, so that the page is full of apostrophes, you will be out of control. Listen carefully, Annie? Prue's method of recording Wyoming flavor in her collection of short stories "Close-up".

8. Avoid describing people in detail like Steinbeck. What does "Amelia and the girl who followed him" look like in Hemingway's Mountain of White Elephants? "She took off her hat and put it on the table." This is the only physical description in the story.

Unless you are Margaret, don't describe places and things in great detail? Atwood will describe the scene realistically in words. You don't want descriptions to stop actions and stories.

10. Try to skip those parts that readers will skip. Think about what you skipped when reading novels: those long paragraphs with too many words.

James police James police

1. Improve your vocabulary. Words are the raw material of skills. The bigger your vocabulary, the more effective your writing will be. We who write in English are lucky to have the richest and most diverse languages in the world. Pay tribute to it.

2. Read widely and differently. Bad writing is contagious.

Don't just plan to write-write. Only by writing, rather than thinking about writing, can we form our own style.

Write what you need to write, not what is popular or what you think will sell well.

5. Accept new experiences, especially other people's opinions. Anything that happens to a writer-no matter how happy or painful-is not a waste.