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| HOW NOT TO WRITE: A PRIMER |
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| You may know someone who writes or perhaps you are a writer yourself. You shouldn`t be ashamed to admit it. America has made great progress in accepting writers. Thanks to ongoing therapy, many writers lead nearly normal lives. Some are married. Others go out the front door and into the real world on a daily basis. Most can button their shirts or blouses. A few even work. |
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| Our nation is thick with writers. Scratch the surface of American life and you`ll find a writer, usually scratching his own surface. Writers gather at poetry readings and writers` workshops with titles like "Turning Personal Experience into Rejection Slips," "Selling Non-fiction to Non-readers," and "Your Friend, the Comma." |
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| Some of my best friends used to be writers until I found out they were and stopped inviting them to potlucks. I was a writer myself before I kicked my habit with the help of Journalism, the writer`s methadone. So the least I can do is offer tips on becoming the non-writer you always wanted to be. |
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| My Non-Writer`s Workshop is guaranteed to turn any compulsive scribbler into a victim of writer`s block quicker than you can say "Danielle Steel has all the best book deals sewn up." |
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| 1. Begin with a simple declarative sentence: Try: "There are too many writers these days." Or: "Look at all these books. Who would want to read mine?" Continue from there if you still feel like it. |
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| 2. Vary your sentence patterns: Instead of "There are too many writers these days," try: "These days there are too many writers." See how many variations you can make. Some of my own favorites include: "Writers - way too many these days." Or: "Too many writers these days there are." Or even: "Every goddamned time I ask someone at a potluck what he does for a living, he always says, 'Oh, I`m a writer.`" See how these variations add readability to your prose and make you want to enroll in a trade school. |
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| 3. Use the active voice: Consider the difference between these sentences - "The second-rate novel was still unfinished by the clueless writer" and "The clueless writer didn`t have a prayer of finishing his second-rate novel and then one day he woke up one day to realize his magnum opus would only get published by a Vanity Press so he wised up and got a real job." No comparison, is there? Notice how active voice equals action and results in the writer getting minimum wage work at Home Depot. |
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| 4. Avoid cliches: Don`t settle for trite phrases like "Writers are a dime a dozen." Be original: "If all the writers within the sound of my voice were laid end to end, it might make a good photo op for the local paper |
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| 5. Write what you know: If you`ve spent the last six years writing at your desk, use that. Write stories about a writer who writes stories about writing stories. Write a novel about a writer who writes a novel about his potlucks with other writers. Agents and editors alike will appreciate your unique perspective. |
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| 6. Use of lie and lay: This one troubles even the pros. Wrong: "When friends and former girlfriends asked him whether his novel had gotten beyond Chapter One, the starving writer would often lie." Right: "When friends and former girlfriends asked him whether his novel had gotten beyond Chapter One, the starving writer would often lie, then lay about his room aimlessly for hours." |
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| 7. Selling your writing: Editors are flooded with manuscripts (see #1) so you`ll have to get creative in marketing your work. Try handing your stories to eager students on college campuses at noon. Mail them to total strangers and ask for a $1 donation. Drop them from a helicopter buzzing your local county fair. Remember: It`s not what you write but who you write to, and how much they`ve had to drink before they read what you write. |
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| 8. Finding work: After you`ve tried these tips, it should be easy to find work in a field that requires no writing experience whatsoever. But if you still feel the urge to write that spell-binding great American novel that captures the nation`s attention and earns you more money than you`ll see in a lifetime of menial work, then lie (lay?) down and turn on the shopping network until the urge goes away. Readers everywhere will thank you. |
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