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Mircoles, 6 de agosto de 2014

La casa se despert con los pasos ajetreados de mis abuelos

resonando en las habitaciones vacas.

1.

Make it great, no matter how long it takes. Theres no such thing

as too many drafts. Theres no such thing as too much time spent.

As you well know, a great book can last forever. A great book

can change a persons life. A mediocre book is just commerce.

2. Let some of you come through. Youre obviously not writing a memoir

here, but this book is still partly about youthe world you see,the way you think, the experiences you have with people. And trust

me, readers are interested in who you are. So dont be afraid to let

bits and pieces of your personality and even life details seep into

the text. It will breathe a lot of life into the book.

1.

Write every day. Anything you do every day gets easier. If

youreinsanely busy, make the amount that you write every day

small (100 words? 250 words?) but do it every day.

Suggested Reading

Charles Baxter. Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction.

Graywolf Press, 1997.

Janet Burroway. Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft.

HarperCollins, 1994.

Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren. Understanding Fiction.

Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1959.

Rust Hills. Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular.

Mariner Books, 2000.

Heather Sellers. The Practice of Creative Writing: A Guide forStudents. Bedford/St. Martins, 2008.

David Starkey. Creative Writing: Four Genres in Brief. Bedford/St.

Martins, 2009.

Jerome Stern. Making Shapely Fiction. W.W. Norton & Company, 1991

An informational photograph is little more than a visual record

of a person, place or event. It offers nothing more than identification

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value and has no redeeming story-telling qualities.

Passive

These situations show people whose essential purpose is to have

their photo taken for publication. It is all that is possible when

the event that makes up the action of the story is no longer taking

place.

Begin sentences with subjects and verbs, letting subordinate

elements branch to the right.

Even a long, long sentence can be clear and powerful when the

subject and verb make meaning early.

Master writers can craft page after page of sentences written

in this structure.

Build one sentence upon another. Avoid monotonous structure by

varying the lenght of sentences.

Use verbs in their strongest form, the simple present or past.

Strong verbs create action, save words and reveal the players.

"Bond drew aside one curtain and opened wide the tall windows

and stood, holding the curtains open and looking out across the greatboomerang curve of water under the riding moon. The night breeze felt

wonderfully cool on his naked body. He looked at his watch. It said

two o'clock.

Bond gave a shuddering yawn. He let the curtains drop back into

place. He bent to switch off the lights on the dressing-table. Suddenly

he stiffened and his heart missed a beat."

Never use the passive when you can use the active.

Never say never jaja.

Avoid verb qualifiers that attach themselves to standard prose

like barnacles to the the hull of a ship:

sort of, tend to, kind of, must have, seemed to, could have, use

to.

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says, Look at me.

Strunk & White, The Elements of Style

In any sentence, the comma acts as a speed bump and the period as a

stop sign. At the period the thought of the sentence is completed.

That slight pause in reading flow magnifies the final word. This effect

is intensified at the end of a paragraph, where the final words often

adjoin white space. In a column of type, the readers eyes are drawn

to the words next to the white space.

Begin with a good quote, hide the attribution in the middle, end with

a good quote.

Look for opportunities to revise sentences so that more powerful or

interesting words appear at the beginning and the end.