Important words for an aspiring writer. Advice from famous writers, creative motivation and secrets of literary work from professionals

The Writer's Digest website published interesting and very useful material for aspiring authors, which we decided to translate and adapt for those who are interested in creating literary works. The material, dedicated to 15 things that aspiring authors should never do, is based on interviews with authors , conferences, editorial opinions and writing experience.

Don't look for the only method

Don't think that there is a strictly defined path or method that a writer must follow. Simply put, look for what works for you. Listen to yourself and trust yourself.

There are many articles and textbooks devoted to the literary process, and the methods outlined in them often contradict each other. The writing path is not a yellow brick road that you have to strictly follow, and at different stages of your writing career you will probably use several different techniques, or even invent new ones that suit you.
Don't imitate your idols

Don't try to imitate your idols. Be yourself. We remember and love authors for their originality, vivid stories and individual language. Imitation is the best form of flattery, but if you imitate someone all the time, you will be remembered as a copy machine and not as a writer. No one in the world has your experience, your personality, or your voice. Therefore, try to express your ideas in a manner that is natural to you. Of course, no one forbids you to learn from the masters, read the works of your favorite authors or write fan fiction, but remember - every writer should have his own voice. Otherwise, he will not be a writer, but a photocopier.

Don't get bogged down in theory

Don't get stuck in discussions about what and how to write. It can be useful to get other people's points of view about whether to write a synopsis before the text, how carefully the work should be planned, how much the author's experience should penetrate into the text, whether it is necessary to edit the text during the writing process or is it better to do this after finishing. But such thoughts should not force you into a framework and take up most of your time. Creating a literary work is attractive precisely because of the feeling of freedom and the opportunity to do what you want and what you think is right. Don't get stuck within the boundaries set by someone else.

Don't fixate on the publication

Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Publishing a book is a long process. The novel "Pride and Prejudice" was rejected by publishers and waited 15 years for publication. You can't predict in advance what fate awaits your work, so always have a couple of ideas in mind that you can start working on as soon as you finish one story. Finding a publishing house is an important stage in your career, but it should not consume you entirely and interfere with your creativity.

Think about the image

Pay attention to your image in the industry. The writing business may seem like a huge undertaking, but it involves a number of people collaborating, talking, and exchanging ideas with each other. Therefore, inappropriate behavior, insult or rudeness that you make towards one of the industry representatives may spread across literary agencies, publishing houses and influence the publisher’s decision to cooperate with you. Therefore, no matter how offensive the refusal may be or no matter how unpleasant the proposals to revise the text may be for you, try to think that the unpleasant situation will sooner or later be resolved, and your image will remain with you forever.

Don't explode in response to criticism

Learn not to react violently to negative reviews. There are no favorite works by everyone. Every masterpiece of world culture has people who don’t like it or don’t understand it. Beta readers, editors, and literary agents - all those who read your essay will have their own, individual opinion about it. And it's useful! Try to select the comments that you find fair, those that you are willing to pay attention to, and discard the rest (unless, of course, making the editor's suggestions is a clause in your contract - then you will have to live with it). Learn to take criticism - it will make you better.

Do not feed the trolls

But know how to separate criticism from trolling. Sometimes people try to get rid of some of their own problems by creating problems for others. And if your writing becomes a target for such outpourings, the only thing you can do is ignore the trolls' feedback. Any response you give them will be an invitation to conversation, so don't engage in conversations with trolls, don't take them as personal attacks, and don't try to find logic in them.

Language is your working tool

Don't forget the basics. Any writer works with language. We use written words to convey our thoughts, images, and ideas to the reader. Spelling, syntax, grammar - these are all your working tools, and they need to be sharpened. Have respect for your reader and don't force him to wade through inconsistent endings, sentences that lose their meaning due to missing commas, and mistakes that change the meaning of words. Reading a book requires thought, and as an author, you want the reader to think about the ideas in your book and empathize with the characters, rather than trying to figure out what the phrase "chopped meadow" means.

Don't break yourself for the sake of a trend

Don't write something that everyone likes but is contrary to your interests. There are trends, popular topics or genres on the market, but if they are not close or interesting to you, there is no need to force yourself to write, hoping to make quick money. Writing a book, editing it and then publishing it is a long process. And, most likely, by the time your book is published, the trend will have already changed and love stories between young girls and hundred-year-old vampires will have already lost their former popularity. Why translate the paper? Write what interests you - for sure, among the entire population of the globe there will be someone who is interested in the same things.

Don't badmouth someone else's success

Try to be kind to the successes of other authors. Even if their works offend your literary taste. No matter how terrible the book may seem to you and no matter what it tells you about the author’s mental health - remember, the author wrote this book, found a publishing house and has already walked the path that you are taking. It could be incredibly easy or terribly difficult, but one way or another - this was his path and his efforts were rewarded. Let the successes of other writers be an inspiration to you, instead of thinking: “what hellish nonsense is published, there is no point in writing something good if the public likes such hell,” think: “if this author was published, then what am I Waiting? I need to write and work!" One writer's success does not mean another writer's failure; it is not a tennis match.

Don't think it's easy

Don't think that becoming a writer is easy. Yes, we've all heard dozens of stories about how someone wrote a book and suddenly woke up famous. But at the same time, we know that Stephen King received more than 30 refusals from publishers. The Chronicles of Narnia were published almost by accident, after many publishers rejected the book. Sometimes the text has to go through a very thorny path to the reader’s heart, and it can be very difficult to maintain the inner conviction that someone needs your work. Most likely you will have difficulties. But whether you can overcome them and remain faithful to your calling depends on you.

Don't forget about reality

Don't forget about real life. There are few things that can compare to the wonder of immersing yourself in an imaginary world that you yourself have created. But there is life beyond the boundaries of your desktop, and it is often the main source of inspiration.

Be sure to read

Read. You can't become a writer without reading. Reading is your school of excellence and your inspiration. You need to know the classics to understand which works have stood the test of time and why. You need to know modern literature in order to understand what works are being published now and what interests readers at the moment. If the language you write is your work tool, then the books you read are your bus ticket to get to work.

Don't fight the text any more than necessary

Learn to give up... in small things. The book consists of dozens of chapters, and a chapter consists of dozens of sentences. And if you feel that something isn’t working, that this sentence, word, or plot twist doesn’t fit your story, don’t be afraid to abandon it. After all, you can always come back to them later and refine them to the desired level.

Do not give up

But never give up completely. A writer is someone who writes. Someone who has an inner need to write. If you feel this need within yourself, it would be a crime not to fulfill it. You will have moments when it seems that everything is over, you have no more strength and you want to give up. But there will definitely be others - when someone reads your text and says “this is great! I really liked it!” The writer's spark is very difficult to extinguish - even if you firmly decide to give up creativity, after a while you still run the risk of finding yourself in front of a monitor, typing words. But the precious time you could have spent on becoming a better writer but instead spent regretting your failed writing career will not be made up for. Therefore, write. Not for the sake of rave reviews, not for the sake of money, but for the sake of that amazing moment when tiny elements, letters and words, add up to a fascinating story that comes to life on paper.

Today there are no problems with publication: almost everyone can find a publishing house, of which there are a great many, and publish their work. But publishing a work is the final, but far from the main part of the process.

Remember that the answer to the question of how to write a book lies in the talent and abilities of each author. If he has them, then you can count on the success of the work. Moreover, in addition to this, you also need a desire to write and learn how to correctly formulate your thoughts into the “written word.” After all, it is not always possible to correctly express our emotions and ideas in literary language: this requires some knowledge and skills.

As a rule, if a beginning writer doesn’t know where to start writing a book, things don’t go beyond the idea. The desire to learn and the ability to find the necessary information are some of the keys to getting things moving. We will try to help you with this.

First of all, decide what your story will be about and what genre it should be written in. Perhaps you are interested in poetic or prose form, perhaps your idea will be adequately interpreted in the form of diary entries, essays, or even an entire novel. A very important issue that is directly related to the success of your work among readers is the relevance of your chosen topic.

Of course, the answer to the question of how to write a book is not limited to just choosing the topic and form of the work. The author must be well versed in the topic he is going to cover. In order to decide on this, you can choose several topics that you would like to cover, and from them - the one that you like best. Moreover, knowledge in this area should be as thorough as possible.

In addition, you must clearly understand the potential audience that may be interested in your work. The fact is that the set goal and the circle of intended readers shape the style of the book and its direction as a whole. You know that popular science literature is very different from children's or fiction. The reader is your addressee, and he should understand the language of presentation.

Remember that when it comes to learning how to write books, you should not rush into choosing a title and structure. As a rule, during the creation of a work, many new thoughts, ideas, even storylines arise. The writer is a creative person, because it was not for nothing that Leo Tolstoy wrote about his novel “Anna Karenina” (example quote): “Imagine, my Anna threw herself under the train.” The hero's line or the plot as a whole develops independently and suggests to the author the logical ending of the work.

Remember that the title of a work is a very important element, because it attracts the reader and “provokes” him to read or not read the book. Therefore, you need to be very responsible when choosing a title and postpone it until a later date, when the entire text is ready.

The main issue here is the creation of the main content of the work. You shouldn’t limit yourself to any deadlines: it often takes more time than you initially expect. Flights of fancy have no limits, so it’s impossible to predict how long it will take you to write a book. It's better to plan with a reserve.

As you may have noticed, creating a literary work is a very complex and lengthy process that requires a lot of effort and knowledge. Therefore, an aspiring writer needs not only to know how to write a book, but also to correctly use the information received.

Any person can write a book; authors are not born. The only question is how good a writer you are, or more precisely, how good a storyteller you are.

It may be that a person has created a unique story idea that could win the Nobel Prize in Literature, but if that story is made up of meager sentences and undeveloped dialogue from the main characters, such a writer is worthless. How to give birth to an author within yourself who beautifully expresses your thoughts, how to give birth to ideas for your stories, and in general, how do real writers work? Read all about it below.

Work time

Surely many aspiring authors have encountered such a great feeling as Inspiration; it covers a person completely, and he is full of emotions, capable of constructing a literary text of several dozen standard pages in one evening without taking smoke breaks or running to the toilet. Here, at the so-called Great Inspiration, lies the pitfall of any aspiring writer.

Remember once and for all - a professional writer uses a rush of creative inspiration only to create the idea itself, the concept of the future text, and not, like Stakhanovsky, write the text all night on emotions.

A professional writer literally squeezes the text out of himself every day, little by little. He writes for himself and only for himself. The goal is to create a story that he himself would like to read with pleasure. It is possible to write from inspiration to inspiration, only poetry in three columns, but not like novels.

Ideas for creativity

The truth of any outstanding literary figure boils down to the following law: “To become a writer, you must first become a reader.” Indeed, reading refreshes the storyteller's thought process, making his train of thought more structured with a greater range of vocabulary. This is especially noticeable these days, when the average person reads one and a half books a year. And so, when this person (unexpectedly for his beloved) picks up a book and reads it for an hour a day for a week, he begins to notice how his dreams have changed in a positive direction, in them he begins to see more colors, people and events. His speech has also changed significantly; the “new” reading person, through his own example, feels how his consciousness has begun to work much more efficiently, as if it were a newly oiled clockwork. That’s right, fresh thoughts gleaned from books act catalytically in a person’s brain, giving birth to his own unique thoughts and ideas.

Your book will be a success among readers not because of the writer’s “light pen,” but solely because of fresh, unique ideas implemented in the form of a literary text. Write about something that no one has written about before, and you may become not just a “genius of the pen,” but also the creator of new literary genres. Absorb at least 40 pages of text a day, and you will have a real chance of becoming a real writer.

Who is narrating?

You can write from the perspective of the main character, from the author, from the hero and a number of other characters, from the author and the hero, etc. Which option is better, you ask? A good story is capable, no, it should, it is obliged to evoke emotions in the reader, the easiest way to achieve this is by narrating on behalf of the hero of the story. However, it is quite possible to be a successful writer by distributing the roles of narrators between the author and the hero or the author and the heroes.

How to create an idea?

Writers are divided into two conditional categories in terms of drawing up ideas for a future work. Some (I want to note that this is done by a minority) at the very beginning of writing the text, work out in detail the plan for the course of the story of the story, carefully select in advance all the characters, places of action... in general, they do everything to ensure that the story is created from beginning to end according to a strictly worked out plan. Others write without any plan, they have only a preliminary plan at their disposal, and everything that follows is simply invented by the writer as he writes. Which category to classify yourself in is a matter for each person personally.

In what volumes do they write?

Professional writers, for whom such work is the main source of income, work almost every day, some write from 5 to 15 pages a day, and the most hardworking ones quite realistically manage to compose up to 30 pages in one day. Books consist of 150-2000 pages (meaning 1 standard page is equal to 1800 characters without spaces). Amateur authors, at the very beginning of their careers, write short stories ranging from 5 to 20 pages; they usually complete their stories in one or two days. At the beginning of your activity, it is much more rational to master small volumes of text before moving on to literary volumes.

We have selected recommendations from world-famous writers regarding the organization of work on a text, as well as advice on creating the world of a work of art, those that explore creative methods and techniques. These are tips that will be useful to absolutely all authors, regardless of their style, artistic concepts and genre of presentation.

About writing as work

Advice from Ray Bradbury (based on the book “Zen in the Art of Writing”):

1. Start writing as soon as an interesting thought appears, and don’t stop until every last word has been said.

2. Make lists of nouns, from which a story may later emerge. Look through lists and make up stories using words chosen at random.

3. Write every day, without taking days off, since Bradbury is convinced: “over time, quantity turns into quality,” that is, the more the author practices in creating literary texts, the better his writing skills.

4. Write one story a week. So, by the year the author will have forty to fifty stories ready. And some of them are sure to be successful: according to Ray Bradbury, “it’s impossible to create 52 bad stories in a row.”

Advice from Ernest Hemingway (based on the book “Ernest Hemingway. Selected Letters” and based on the texts of the interview):

1. If the author does not know how to start working on the text, stalls and feels insecure, he “ just need write one true sentence. Write the most truthful thing you can,” Hemingway told himself during bouts of creative apathy in Paris. “Eventually I would write down one truthful phrase and move on from there. - he says. - And it was already easy, because there was always one truthful phrase that you knew, or saw, or heard from someone. If I began to write intricately, or to lead to something, or to demonstrate something, it turned out that these curlicues or decorations could be cut off and thrown away and start with the first truthful, simple affirmative sentence ».

2. Start working on the text at dawn, immediately after waking up, as early as possible. At this time, the author can be alone and fully concentrate on work.

3. Study grammar and punctuation.

4.Be able to stop in time while working on a text in order to avoid writer's block . Hemingway says: “Always stop while you are still writing, and then don’t think about work or worry until you start writing again the next day.” That is, you should finish working on the text until the thought is fully expressed. Stop, knowing what will happen next, so that the next morning it is easy to continue the story.

Tips from Chuck Polannik (based on an essay on literary excellence Polannik published on his official fan site):

1. Surprise yourself and the reader, allowing oneself to experiment, fantasize and think outside the box - this is what, according to Polanikka, a modern reader, spoiled by cinema, expects from a novel.

2. If the thought runs out, reread previous episodes, return to the characters who appeared at the beginning of the story, pay attention to detail. “When finishing Fight Club, I had no idea what to do with the skyscraper. But when I re-read the first scene, I came across a fragment that talks about mixing nitrate with paraffin, saying that this is an unreliable method of preparing explosives. This little retreat became an excellent “buried gun.”

3. Use kitchen timer method when you don't feel like writing. The Palahniuk method involves setting a kitchen timer for one hour and writing until the timer goes off. As a result, the author, spurred on by the expiring time, must become passionate about writing and continue working on the text when time runs out.

4. Make writing a social occasion., namely, to attend a variety of near- and not only literary parties.

5. Take a photo for the cover of your book now, while I'm young.

About creativity

Previous advice from famous writers relates more to issues of organizing the work process: knowledge, whatever you say, is useful, but information about what the text itself should be is no less valuable. From the diversity of opinions, we chose two sets of rules that seemed to us the most relevant. An important point: the position of the king of suspense Stephen King, outlined below, contradicts some of the provisions of the previous advice of Ray Bradbury. But this is the beauty of exposure to different points of view on writing: the polyphony of opinions allows us to find our own truth.

1. Tackle big prose straight away, that is, for a novel, since short stories are difficult to sell to a publishing house.

2. Don't care about the plot: according to King, books write themselves, or, as he put it, they write themselves, the main thing is that the premise is catchy. In fact, all of his books began with the message: “what if.” For example, “what if a provincial town is cut off from the rest of the world by a giant impenetrable dome of unknown origin,” etc.

3. Don't care about the idea: King believes that the story is important, not the idea; people read popular literature for the sake of stories.

4. Pay great attention to dialogues: They must be alive. The hero must speak his own language, corresponding to his social status, age, professional affiliation, etc.

5. Trying to sell the manuscript to a large publishing house without wasting your time on trifles. And in parallel with negotiating with the publisher, work on a new manuscript.

Advice from Kurt Vonnegut (in the preface of the book “The Snuff Box of Bagombo: Uncollected Stories,” eight principles of writing are formulated)

1. You need to write in such a way that the reader did not consider time spent reading wasted.
2. Create at least one hero, to which the reader might get attached.
3. Every character must want something, even if it’s “just a glass of water.”
4. Each proposal must serve one of two purposes: to reveal character or continue an action.
5. " Start as close to the end as possible.".
6. " Don't be afraid to be a sadist. No matter how innocent and glorious your main characters are, let all sorts of horrors happen to them so that the reader can see what they are worth.”
7. Writing for one person's pleasure. “If you metaphorically throw open the window and make love to the whole world at once, your story runs the risk of catching pneumonia.”
8. Give readers as much information as possible – and as quickly as possible. This is necessary so that readers can get involved in the game as early as possible and become immersed in the narrative. “Don't keep them in the dark. The reader should not be left guessing. He must immediately understand what is happening, where, when and why - so that he can finish the story on his own if the cockroaches devour the last pages,” is Vonnegut’s opinion.

If you don't have time to read, you don't have time (and skills) to write, said Stephen King. For those who want to become a writer, the site has selected several tutorials from famous wordsmiths, with the most interesting and original advice and which, among other things, will be interesting as works of art.

Writers love to share the secrets of their craft, their views on literary activity, and their own experiences of writing. Some give lectures and conduct creative workshops. Thus, Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky happily worked as a guest poet in a number of American and British universities, where he taught, among other things, the theory of versification, and the narcissistic, bile-spewing Vladimir Nabokov for many years sought a professorship at Harvard. Those who do not want to strain their ligaments and chew on what is obvious to them, encountering misunderstanding and even indifference from listeners, choose a different path - they write books where they talk about the principles of literary work, about things that are important for the formation and development of a writer, and give advice to beginning writers.

Ray Bradbury. Zen in the Art of Writing

The master of science fiction said: “In our time, the joy of existence lies in helping teenagers find paths to new frontiers...” This is exactly what he does in “Zen...”. Written in beautiful artistic language, the manual, which is at the same time a literary manifesto of the author, intersperses practical advice on creating an individual style and collaborating with a publisher with abstract reflections on literature, Bradbury’s favorite poems and interesting episodes from his biography.

The word "Zen" in the title of the book, which does not even have an approximate definition, which is a reference to the philosophical treatise "Zen in the Art of Archery", introducing the West to Zen Buddhism, means, in my opinion, pleasure - the pleasure that the writer receives from writing . The author of The Martian Chronicles and Dandelion Wine sought to teach future writers not only to write well, but also to love creativity, to love as passionately as he loved it. The book ends with the words “Work is love!” Bradbury himself, an optimist and lover of life, believed that he would die if he stopped writing, and for many decades, until his death, he began every morning with work on his next work.

The secret to creativity is to treat your ideas like cats - just make them follow you.

So far, only the first essay, “Zen in the Art of Writing,” entitled “The Joy of Writing,” has been translated into Russian, and it can only be found in electronic form.

Selected tips:

“First of all, a writer must have a restless heart. The writer should be in a fever of excitement and delight. If this is not the case, let him work outside, picking peaches or digging ditches; God knows, these activities are healthier for your health.”

“Read those books that sharpen your perception of color, shape and world scale.”

“Imagine someone like you, for example, who wants or doesn’t want something with all his heart. Let him get ready to run. Then let's start. And - following, not lagging behind a single step. Before you even have time to look back, your hero with his great love or hatred will carry you to the end of the story.”

“Try to find little delights for yourself, look for little sorrows and give form to both. Taste them, give your typewriter a try too.”

“The story of any story should therefore read like a weather report: cold today, hot tomorrow. Set the house on fire this afternoon. Tomorrow pour cold water of criticism on the still smoldering coals. Tomorrow there will be time to think, shred and rewrite, but today - explode, fly into fragments in all directions, disintegrate into the smallest particles! The next six or seven drafts will be real torture.”

“The secret to creativity is to treat your ideas like cats—just make them follow you.”

Konstantin Paustovsky. Golden Rose

“This book is not a theoretical study, much less a guide. These are simply notes on my understanding of writing and my experience,” wrote beloved Russian writer Marlene Dietrich in the foreword to The Golden Rose. In his work, Paustovsky talks about how heroes always resist the author’s plan, and you need to listen to them; that it is not necessary to carry a notebook with you everywhere; compares the artist and the writer, demanding that the latter distinguish colors no worse than the painter.

The instructions are supported by statements from other writers, examples from one’s own experience, and fascinating short stories. In addition to the nature of central Russia, the classic loved nothing as passionately as the Russian language, so it is not surprising that “The Golden Rose” was written in a polished, expressive style and, if only for this reason, deserves to become a reference book for every aspiring writer.

Paustovsky believed that “Every minute, every casually thrown word and glance, every deep or humorous thought, every imperceptible movement of the human heart, just like the flying fluff of a poplar or the fire of a star in a night puddle - all these are grains of gold dust. We, writers, have been extracting them for decades, these millions of grains of sand, collecting them unnoticed by ourselves, turning them into an alloy and then forging from this alloy our “golden rose” - a story, novel or poem.”

Selected tips:

“The one who forces himself to accumulate observations and rush around with his notes (“so as not to forget something”), of course, will indiscriminately collect piles of observations, but they will be dead. In other words, if these observations are transferred from a notebook to the fabric of living prose, then they will almost always lose their expressiveness and look like alien pieces.

You should never think that I will ever need this rowan bush or this gray-haired drummer in the orchestra for a story, and therefore I must observe them especially closely, even somewhat artificially. Observe, so to speak, “out of duty,” for purely business reasons.
You should never forcefully squeeze even very successful observations into prose. When necessary, they will enter it themselves and take their place.”

“One of the foundations of writing is a good memory.”

Stephen King. How to write books. Memoirs about the craft

It would even be strange if such a prolific and financially successful author did not write a guide for aspiring writers. The book consists of two parts: “Biography” and “What is Writing.” The first tells about the events of King's life that played a role in shaping him as a writer, about the influence of the work of Howard Lovecraft on him, about the consequences of a car accident, after which he, by the way, decided to write this work, and about why he did not keep his promises to stop write.

In the second part of the book, King gives practical advice to young writers - for example, he recommends avoiding the use of adverbs whenever possible, shares secrets on how to develop a plot correctly or what character traits should the main character of a good “horror story” have, illustrates the instructions with works of famous authors and stories, written by him specifically for this book.

If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or skills) to write. It's simple.

“How to Write Books” is useful, I think, only for those who want to write like Stephen King. And for them it is priceless. The work will undoubtedly arouse interest among admirers of the work of the “king of horror.” It is worth noting that the book was highly praised by the authoritative and strict film critic, long-time host of the Oscar ceremony, Roger Ebert.

Selected tips:

“It all starts with this: put a table in the corner, and every time you start writing, remind yourself why it’s not in the middle of the room. Life is not a support system for art. It’s quite the opposite.”

“... try to write better and remember that writing adverbs is human weakness, writing “he said” or “she said” is the perfection of the gods.”

“If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (and skills) to write. It's simple."