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Articles, Lectures, Online Reading,
and Websites for Readers and Writers

Probable best introduction to getting published: Jane Friedman's Guide. Also see Tips for Writer. And here are basic instructions on how to Make/Get Your Own Website

I'm very impressed with how you are moving forward with your dream--you've clearly done the research and thought through the alternatives.  I probably shared this with you already, but here's an article about building your own MFA experience .  There's information, too at  DIY/MFA   (caveat: I can't find how much this actually costs)  and also a short,cheap book called The Portable MFA.   The point is that there are resources for doing it on your own if you want to.

Do stay in touch--I'm very interested in this journey you're taking.
Nancy Wayson Dinan on What MFA Programs Do and Don't Do for Aspiring Novelists (2024)
Sarah Shulman intervewed about MFA programs (she doesn't like them)

 

"When the subject of creative writing courses is raised in company as sophisticated as readers of this paper, say, two virtually automatic responses can be expected. First a withering "Can you really teach anyone how to write?" An editor of this very paper asked me that only two days ago.

"And then someone is almost certain to repeat a legend from the old days, when male American writers acted like tough guys, like Humphrey Bogart, to prove that they, although they were sensitive and liked beauty, were far from being homosexual. The Legend: A tough guy, I forget which one, is asked to speak to a creative writing class. He says: "What in hell are you doing here? Go home and glue your butts to a chair, and write and write until your heads fall off!" Or words to that effect.

"My reply: "Listen, there were creative writing teachers long before there were creative writing courses, and they were called and continue to be called editors."

 

 

 

Writing Advice About What to Read to Learn Novel Writing

 

The Spring 2023 private writing class suggested:

  • George Lies Linda Fairstein's mysteries for New York atmosphere and methodical organization. George Lies also suggests this collection: Points of View (revised 1995) by James Moffett (Editor), Kenneth R. McElheny (Editor) . George says, "Learning of 11 POVs: do a deep dive into fiction, with this book of SS fiction; you know most of 44 authors (including well known women authors)."
  • Linda Atlas prefers Dorothy L. Sayres mysteries (British, first half 20th c.).
  • Stacey Campbell suggests collections of short stories (by the same author) She sayd, "[They] help me get into a rhythm." John Cheever, Hemingway for how to create an arc of story and resolution.
  • Donna Hutchinson is reading a novella "Saving Tyler Hake" and is interested in the material at the beginning that sets up, foreshadows,etc.
  • Dreama Frisk mentioned a seminal book for her that got her interested in novels, The Good Earth. She adds,"The person who influenced me to write novels was Barbara Kingsolver when I read The Poisonwood Bible. I met and talked with her at Hindman (Appalachian Writers' Conference). "
  • Philip Ai recommends Robert Heinlein for world building with a minimum of description.
  • Heather Curran says that Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner taught her about subtle foreshadowing and the lucky coincidence. James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man taught her about stream of consciousness writing, and Cormac McCarthy's The Road taught her about how dialogue can supplement action and create characterization, tone, and theme.
  • Tracy Costa recommends Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle.
  • MSW recommends George R. R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice series especially Game of Thrones, Clash of Kings, and A Storm of Swords for multiple points of view and how to pull readers through the story with old fashioned cliff-hangers.

 

 

 

 

The Spring NYU 2020 Novel Writing Class offered some excellent advice for writers from novels that taught them how to write--not necessarily great novels, but great novels for learning.

 

Genevieve Castelino

Regarding best advice - mine comes from Gabriel Garcia Marquez who says, "if I had to give a young writer some advice I would say to write about something that has happened to him; it's always easy to tell whether a writer is writing about something that has happened to him or something he has read or been told. Pablo Neruda has a line in a poem that says "God help me from inventing when I sing." It always amuses me that the biggest praise for my work comes for the imagination, while the truth is that there's not a single line in all my work that does not have a basis in reality. The problem is that Caribbean reality resembles the wildest imagination." (Source)

Brain Pickings is one of my absolute favorite things on the Internet. This is one of my book marked articles on writing advice that I refer to quite often.

 

Books: Is it a novel? I don't know because it doesn't fit the traditional definition of a novel. But the work I find best for learning is Kurt Vonnegut's A Man Without A Country. His language is so precise, it is funny and poignant, and so so so wise. When I feel a writer's block, I pick it up, turn to a random page and read. Tying back to what Marquez says – 'write about something that has happened to you' – that's what Vonnegut does here, and reading it never fails to jumpstart my creative juices.


The other novel I find really helpful is Elizabeth Strout's My name is Lucy Barton. – I am writing a family drama. From the smallest to big sweeping ones, I love how Strout handles of the nuances of family relationships.

 

 

 


Suzan Colón

Best advice I was ever given about writing: read your work aloud. An editor told me to do that, and I was amazed at how reading aloud affected what I'd written, and how it would be read. The editor suggested it when I was writing 1500-word articles, but I've used this practical tip for all of my books--yes, I've read 80,000 words aloud. It takes a few days and it's always worth the time. I've been able to write smoother, more true-to-life dialogue, find inconsistencies, and its value for finding repetition or gaps makes the creaky throat worthwhile.

Most instructive novel: Not the most instructive of all time, maybe, but I recently read a novel that could have been a good book with revisions and steering from an editor with solid story navigation. As is, the protagonist is unlikable, and not in a refreshing, clever way; the story meanders, giving the idea that it's leading up to something, but doesn't; it hops around in time in a confusing way.

The book was very instructive as an example of what revision, and the willingness to put in the time for revisions, can do for a story.


 

Mack Hood

The novel which influenced me is Naked Lunch (and others) by William Burroughs which uses the cut-up technique. It shows that a story does not have to be told in a linear fashion and how, even when you basically explode the text, the reader can still follow the story and see things they might not have seen had it been structured traditionally.

As for the best advice....it was when a writer told me to have someone hold up a photograph and then tell them what I see. I find this has been very useful since I was not detail oriented previously.

 

 

Sebastian Lopez
Advice:
Stephen King - "All you need to write is an empty room and a door you're willing to close."
Anonymous - "Rules are for nerds."
Books:
Mistborn
by Brandon Sanderson - I want to reach the level of plotting that he achieved with this book whenever I write. The story moves perfectly at such a fantastic pace with great characters.
Lord of the Flies: Hated it the first time I read it. The second time was for a class and so I was forced to pay attention to themes and motifs and in reading it I gained a newfound appreciation and began to see literature as an art rather than just storytelling.

 

Tina Rosenberg

"Read everything, all the time. Write voraciously. Cut, cut, cut. Dream it, coddle it, write till you bleed, cut some more." My high school English teacher, Jim Carney.
Extras:

"There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." W. Somerset Maugham (Sebastian would like this one).

"To me, the greatest pleasure in writing is not what it's about, but the music the words make." Truman Capote

Novel that taught me a great deal:   Light Years by James Salter- one of the most beautiful books I've ever read.
 
Greg Williams

Best Novels ever in every aspect of learning were Lonesome Dove, East of Eden (also Canary Row for emotive detail), and Shipping News (ending, the strange man finally fitting in, remained with me for years, so lyrical). Presumed Innocent and Silence of the Lambs went much deeper than their genres (also a goal for me).

I have read some books on novel writing over time.

My best advice has come from the old crusty news editors I have worked for. Write you like you talk.   Narrative has to move like lightning, being almost instantly digestible. You have to write like one bad word, sentence, or paragraph is enough to lose the reader. Write with strong verbs (not adjectives and adverbs).

 

 

 

 

 

From an Ex-Publishing Professional

A former student of mine had a conversation with an ex-editor at a major New York publisher.

"He started by reminding me," says the student, "that publishing a hard cover is very expensive. The publishers make money from selling hardcovers. There is a large profit margin there. But now the sales of hardcovers are decreasing while Ebooks are coming on stronger each year. The publishers haven't figured out, he said, how to make money from Ebooks yet. The profit margin is ridiculously small. And because they don't make money from this source, they don't market the books.

"Therefore, it seems, according to him, that they are staying with authors who have big reputations and can be relied upon to sell. The number of new authors they take on is minimal. I asked him if that meant I was engaged in an exercise of futility, and he said probably 'yes.'

"He also pointed out...that self-publishing on the net requires an enormous amount of personal marketing, and most Ebooks don't do well."

 

 

"Imaginative literature … does not enslave; it liberates the mind of man. Its truth is not like the canons of orthodoxy or the irrationality of prejudice and superstition. It begins as an adventure in self-discovery and ends in wisdom and humane conscience."
      -- Chinua Achebe, "The Truth of Fiction" in Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays (New York: Anchor/Random House, NY, 1988).

 

 

E-book Versions of MSW books

Meli's Way Ebook Cover ImageOradell at Sea Ebook Cover ImageLove Palace Ebook Cover Image
Dwight's House Ebook Cover Image
Higher Ground Ebook Cover ImageOnly Great Changes Ebook Cover ImageTrespassers Ebook Cover Image
A Space Apart Ebook Cover ImageRe-Visions Ebook Cover ImageOut of the Mountains Ebook Cover ImageThe City Bulit of Starships Ebook Cover Image

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Thanks Wikipedia