Story Lab: Exploring Writer's Write
Why We Ask You to Buy us a Coffee
- “You really need to learn to accept a gift with grace,” he said. “A gift doesn’t come with any conditions or an implied reciprocation.”
- Sentence Spotlight
- "The dominant sentence is the first and most important in any paragraph"
- "The flow sentences tease out the adventure promised by the dominant sentence"
- "The linking sentence ends a paragraph"
- "The call-out sentence is paragraph in its own right."
I'm a big William Faulkner fan. As I Lay Dying is one of may favorite books. I've copied a few distinct phrases from his list of 10. I found them to be inspiring.
- The act of writing shows movement, activity, life.
- I think it best to use as little dialect as possible because it confuses people who are not familiar with it. That nobody should let the character speak completely in his own vernacular
- Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics, good and bad; see how they do it. When a carpenter learns his trade, he does so by observing. Read! You’ll absorb it. Write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window
- I would say to get the character in your mind. Once he is in your mind, and he is right, and he’s true, then he does the work himself.
- It never is as good as it can be done. Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do.
- The real truths come from human hearts. Don’t try to present your ideas to the reader. Instead, try to describe your characters as you see them
- A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination—any two of which, at times any one of which—can supply the lack of the others
- You can always find time to write. Anybody who says he can’t is living under false pretences. To that extent depend on inspiration. Don’t wait. When you have an inspiration put it down.
- Probably any story that can’t be told in one sentence or at least one paragraph is not worth writing
Hey Haley! I ended up reading over the article for “A Magic Trick for Writing” since you piqued my interest when you said it was weird. I agree, it definitely feels like a weird trick for writing, and I don’t think I’d try it out any time soon. I enjoyed reading over the list of what Faulkner said – hopefully it helps me when I’m writing this semester!
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