When I first decided to write this article I did not, in any possible way, think that this was an original topic. I knew perfectly that amateur and professional writers love to cite their favourite authors and share with the world their love for Bukovski and Hemingway. What I did not imagine was the extent of it. If you type “writers’ tips”, or “famous authors writing tips” on Google, the amount of articles who list Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, and Ernest Hemingway is astonishing. The funny thing is that these texts are, most times, badly-written bulletpoints. No sign of prose whatsoever. Which, again, comes with no surprise.
I was on the verge of giving up the idea, but thinking of something else to replace this one sounded even more tedious, so I thought of something to make it work. There is one thing that very few people do in these articles on ‘famous writers’ writing tips’, which is losing the bullet points for a cohesive, fluent, solid text with some good old paragraphs. I know that you love lists because you don’t have time to waste on reading entire sentences. I also know that you like your information straightforward and in H2. It’s fine, I understand you, don’t take this personally. This is just how the Internet works. It happens to me as well as to everybody else: when I read content on the web, I tend to jump from one headline to the next, only hoping to find the notions I want written in bold letters and possibly shorter than a line.
This is not your fault, nor mine. Usually the internet asks users—mostly content creators—to repeatedly write the same concept—with the same words, possibly—in order to be seen by those who might be interested in your piece. The result is an endless list of redundant, useless articles with infinite, unnecessary specifications that add nothing to the core notion, they just waste your time for the sake of indexing. If you work in online marketing this must sound trivial to you, banal. It also is, unfortunately, for those who write for the web. Lately, you write for the search engine, rather than for people. Another trivia.
I had to say these notions out loud, even though they stick out a mile for most people, for two main reasons: the first, is that I wanted to make clear that It is not your fault if you ‘just can’t read online’, the second is to justify the absence of bullet lists in this article. I don’t like articles on writing tips that are written for the sake of Google, because I believe that, to write about writing, one must, at least, try to write at the best of their possibilities.
Here’s the first writing tip that not even Borges would have ever thought to give out: if you want to write well, write for people, not for Google.
What I will try here, is to write a cohesive text on writing tips given out by some among the greatest writers of all times, without making a list, but by sharing them in the form of a single discourse, possibly coherent and readable. If you manage to stick with me to the end of it, good. If you don’t, it means it’s my mistake.
The first writing tip I came across during my research is a very brief essay—one page only—by Italo Calvino, one of the greatest Italian authors of the 20th Century and the most prominent Magic Realism author of the Country. I think he got quite famous for his American Lessons. Six Memos For the Next Millennium, a collection of six writing lessons given out by the author for a seminar at Harvard in 1988, published in written form after his death. The tip I chose from this legendary author, however, does not come from this text. The essay I was telling you about, right at the beginning of this paragraph, is a stand-alone one and it is called the “Antilingua” or, in English, “The Anti-language”. In this super compact yet astonishingly lucid text, Calvino denounces the act of overcomplication of sentences, applying an unnecessary amount of adverbs and adjectives, plus using very complicated words for very easy concepts. Let us have an example, directly taken from Calvino himself.
He starts the essay telling a short story, in which a man investigated for a robbery is telling a policeman his version of facts.
This morning I was going in the basement to light up the heater, and I found all those flasks of wine behind the coal box. I took one of them to have it at dinner. I had no idea the wine shop upstairs had been burgled
The policeman, however, wrote his report as follows:
The undersigned, having been relocating, during the first antimeridian hours in the spaces of the cellar, to execute the start of the thermic system, declares to have stumbled upon the discovery of a certain quantity of wine products, situated in behindhand position over the container utilised for the transport of the fueling material […]
And so on, the translation into “antilanguage goes on for another two or three lines. Calvino’s anecdote expresses his disapproval for the useless habit of many—especially in Italy—to use very long, aulic words and convoluted prose as if they thought at “to do,” “to go,” or “to see” as dirty words, and “flask” “coal” or “box” as concept that have to be embellished in order to be pronounced. He says that this way of writing or talking, which nobody really uses in real life, is ridiculous, ineffective, and pompous. It sounds like the person who uses it is afraid of saying what he or she wants to.
Calvino goes very philosophical in explaining his aversion for the antilanguage, especially because, in Italy, convoluted prose and exceedingly complex vocabulary has always been a rather common practice. However, if we get rid of the polemics, we find here a pillar of good writing practices:
Keep. It. Simple
Not only this was the first thing I learnt in my English classes at Uni, it also is the most reiterated writing tip of all times, told and retold by hundreds of great writers around the world. Many say that oversimplification of prose is the ugly consequence of fast-paced social media, but this is different: writing simple, in this case, does not mean to give up complexity. On the contrary. As Leonardo Da Vinci put it:
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication
Of course you can use higher or lower registers at your own taste. Just know that it is not necessary. Sometimes writers tend to exceed explanations, to use complicated and long descriptions to make 200% sure their reader is understanding everything that is going on. Well, that’s actually the first and most efficient way to lose your reader. Trust your readers. Cut off all the exceeding layers of meaning. Avoid repetition, don’t make your reader feel stupid. Wait and see: if you rely on your audience, you will save tons of energy to say what you really want to say. If you keep your images simple, you can be sure people will feel intelligent and will keep following you. And then, that’s when you can dare.
Good old Checkov said that brilliantly:
Don’t tell me the moon is shining, show me the glint of light on the broken glass
The Russians are majestically good at this: to convey deep, complex emotions by plainly describing the scene. This is also part of the “trust your reader” part. If you read that quote again, you will notice that the second part adds up to the scene and conveys an emotion that the first line does not. There is broken glass. Maybe a window? What else might be broken in the scene? Why are we staring at the moon? Mystery.
You might be thinking, at this point: “where do I get all this inspiration? How do I create all those images every time?”. Surely it is not easy, and there are no shortcuts. Remember the quote “Write drunk, edit sober” by Hemingway? He never said that. There is no evidence whatsoever that proves the writer ever said it, nor that he wrote it, or practised it. All the literary tradition of writers resorting to drugs or alcohol to get inspired is a massive problem. Not only does it bind the figure of the writer to the role of “damned” and dysfunctional member of society, but also avoids telling the bigger, unexceptional, and unexciting rule for getting inspiration: if you want to write well, you have to write. As Sorrentino put it in his movie “The Youth”:
There is no such thing as inspiration, there is only fermentation
Which means: the Muse, the great magical lighting of genius does not, in any possible way—like, literally, it doesn’t work like that—come and strike you out of nowhere, without you doing anything to help it. It is a legend, and also a dangerous one: so many people give up on writing and they think they lack genius because “inspiration does not come”. The truth is boring, and hard to accept: the “ good idea”, the “spark”, comes after “fermentation”, which means that a good piece of writing comes from a long process of assimilation of notions—reading, strolling, listening, watching—and elaboration of them, by writing down what you feel, what you think, and what you want every single day.
Also Isabel Allende said that:
Show up, Show up, show up. And at some point, the Muse will show up too.
This is it: if you want to write, you have to write. Possibly everyday. It is a pain, I know, but all the most beautiful things come out of pain, and that’s also an inspirational quote that did not come from me. Anyway, try it for a month and see. Maybe alternate some writing with some reading, possibly your favourite author: you’ll see the results.
Last but not least, one of my favourite tips on dialogues ever, by fellow John Steinbeck, whose book Cannery Road blew my mind. Check it out if you can. Anyway, the author said:
Say your dialogues aloud and see if they make sense
This is a wonderful tip actually, and I appreciated it even more because it is a very common practice among playwrights: once a play is finished, the author and the director (who sometimes are the same person) start playing it on stage with the actors, and that is when the real text is created: cuts, shifting of scenes, changing of lines, addition of images. Only after the text is fixed on stage and it fits well with the actors, the play is ready. Steinbeck suggests you do the same with your characters: try saying things out loud, because the written form of dialogue often doesn’t match reality. Afterall, we don’t write how we talk (usually). If what you read out loud sounds like something “said”, then the dialogue is highly likely to be well perceived by your audience.
Now you are all set for your writing journey. All these tips from great writers make wonders, believe me. However, all of us have their little secrets for getting that chapter done or to grow and improve your writing skills. Personally, I don’t have much to say. My writing journey has just started and I haven’t learnt much original stuff yet. The only thing I know is this one: If you read something you wrote in the past and cringe hard because it sucks, it means you’re on the right path: you’re growing.
