/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.3600695]

"And Lo he said unto the masses "One shall be the number of general writing threads, and the number of general writing threads shall be one."

ITT:
1. Books about the craft that are worth reading.will bump with the current recommendation pic
2. Quotes on Writing and Writing Tips
3. Writing Exercises and Prompts
4. Writing Resources
5. Please don't post pieces for critique that are longer than a single paragraph, That's another thread.

[Anonymous No.3600700]

[Anonymous No.3600703]

>>3600700
And one without the gradient.

[Anonymous No.3600710]

Inb4 "You can't teach technique" Faulkner said it better. So we'll start with him

Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique. There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut. The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error. The good artist believes that nobody is good enough to give him advice. He has supreme vanity. No matter how much he admires the old writer, he wants to beat him.

[Anonymous No.3600709]

>>3600703
You have taken the time to produce a gradient version of that chart, but have you noticed that you have the same book on there twice?

Also, and this is more convention and personal opinion than anything, but it's usually "/lit/" not /Lit

[Anonymous No.3600716]

>>3600700

>Eats, Shoots and Leaves

Oh that book is shit.

[Anonymous No.3600736]

>>3600709
Thanks for catching that, I could have sworn that I had the layers in the right order after I moved it, but that darn image popped on top of the other one. I guess that goes to show you when you want to get rid of something, delete it, don't just cover it up, or you'll screw yourself in the merge.

[Anonymous No.3600739]

>>3600736
And again, one without the gradient, I know what you mean about the lower case L on /lit, but my ocd flared.

[Anonymous No.3600744]

>>3600716
Yeah, it's a bit on the humor/silly side, but then again so is Fiction Writer's Brainstormer, and I needed a good second book on their to cover grammar. I didn't just want to have Elements of style up their alone, and I thought if I recommended an English Writing Textbook, it would be needlessly expensive.

Although so many people will have an English Textbook anyway. They can refer to that too.

[Anonymous No.3600757]

And of course the counter to the "Can't teach technique argument is that you can't teach someone what to write, but you can teach them how, and let the artist choose his own way from there. The artist isn't going to follow all "the rules" anyway. They are more like guidelines, allowing them to analyze their work's strengths and weaknesses, pushing them towards more aware, more purposeful writing.

[Anonymous No.3600792]

I'm going to work on a new image too, putting some of these quotes together.

[Anonymous No.3600809]

[Anonymous No.3600826]

[Anonymous No.3600854]

[Anonymous No.3600864]

[Anonymous No.3600946]

This is a little neater

[Anonymous No.3600953]

>>3600854
I love how he pretty much said the opposite long enough down his career when he was just going through the motions just to get a buck.
Not knocking him or anything, I just admire his honesty.

[Anonymous No.3600972]

>>3600953
No, I know.
And there's the big mac quote of his.
one of the best things about him is how down to earth he is about his writing. It's not a magical, mystical art, (despite how it's portrayed in the stories with the writers in them) it's a skill. It makes it hard to criticize him when you know he's not being pretentious about his ability.
Like how we all know that Stephen King is bad at endings, and he says it himself. He doesn't like them.

[Anonymous No.3600974]

>>3600792

[Anonymous No.3601006]

John Gardner's books on writing really belong on that.

[Anonymous No.3601012]

How do you guys get inspiration for writing?
How do you get the ideas?

[Anonymous No.3601028]

>>3601006
You mean this?

I'm going to start collecting images and add a new row

[Anonymous No.3601031]

>>3601012
I spin in my swivel chair and brainstorm for an hour until a cool idea hits me.

Not even kidding.

[Anonymous No.3601051]

>>3601012
daydreaming, watching tv, reading books, sitting on the pot, you get ideas all the time, you just got to train yourself to recognize when you do. You'll be daydreaming and then you realize, "I should write that down for later."

I keep a notebook for that stuff. The real hard part for me is working out how to connect the random bits together.

[Anonymous No.3601062]

>>3601028
There's like a million of books called 'the art of fiction'

so many writers with their own ideas of how to write trying to get aspiring writers to write like them. I'd be very surprised if any of them were preferential to hammering something out on your keyboard of your own accord.

[Anonymous No.3601079]

>>3601062
No, there's a ton of shit, and some useful ones. The point of the list isn't to say "You have to use these in order to write." but to say "these ones won't waste your time and/or money."

I've seen too many books that were cash-grabs for authors, or books stating the painfully obvious. And if someone's going to read a book on writing they want to have one that explains the advantages and disadvantages of using different points of view, instead of something written for a fourth grade reading level saying "There are different ways you can narrate. first person, third person omniscient. etc."

[Anonymous No.3601089]

>>3601079
No


How to write:


Read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read

make rules

these rules will invariably be based off what you've read

then write

[Anonymous No.3601097]

A boy who sells chrysanthemums to mothers of dead soldiers on a graveyard to feed his mother and sister.

How clichee is this?

[Anonymous No.3601109]

>>3601028
Yes, that one, thanks.
>>3601062
Only some of them are by superb writers. Fewer still are superb works in their own right--this is one of them.

[Anonymous No.3601114]

>>3601089
Yeah, I was going to post the Inb4: Just Read guide too.

The actual best way to learn to write is to read critically from a large variety of sources. This isn't just Read and Read and keep on reading, ad infinitum, because if you're not working critically through what you're reading it's going to take you much longer to recognize patterns.

Just like taking a films studies course will help you to recognize "Why" certain films are better than others, reading books on literary analysis will help you recognize "Why" some of the books you read are crap and why some of them are great.

Critical reading involves asking questions of yourself during the reading. Especially, but not limited to:
"What is the author trying to convey?"
and
"How are they conveying it?"

Don't worry, these guides are a supplement to reading, not a substitute.

I'll get the disclaimer worked into an image so it can get posted faster next time.

[Anonymous No.3601127]

>>3601097
I forgot to add that his mother dies.

[Anonymous No.3601138]

>>3601127
I can't tell you,
I can tell you that I've never heard it before.
but don't worry, the idea doesn't have to be original, just authentic, and written sincerely,
best just to make sure there is either enough material to fill out the whole novel, or that it is written as a short story.

[Anonymous No.3601168]

[Anonymous No.3601175]

When you are writing a short story or a novel, do you start out with a clear idea of what you are trying to say and how you are going to convey it. I'm still new to writing and I feel like I'm having trouble bringing the two things together.

[Anonymous No.3601186]

>>3601175
You usually start out with one firm thing. It can be a bit of dialogue or an event, or an image, but it can be anything. That's called the story seed, then you develop from there. Thinking of things that can result from it, or thinking of things that can lead to it. thinking of scenes that can accessorize it, make it more meaningful, Then when you have a good idea of what you want to say, you work on how you want to say it. Building an outline and writing the first draft.

[Anonymous No.3601190]

>>3600710
Wise is the man who learns from his own mistakes, but wiser is he who learns from the mistakes of others.

[Anonymous No.3601370]

[Anonymous No.3601690]

>>3601051
What do you do if you need to force it though?
How do you get inspired when you don't want to sit and wait for lightning to strike the muse?

[Anonymous No.3601715]

>>3601690
Drugs

[Anonymous No.3601719]

>>3601690
You should write even when you're not inspired. Force yourself to write; create stupid exercises for yourself if need be. The craft is not just inspiration.

But seeking inspiration isn't that hard, is it? As >>3601690 noted, it's not just staring out the window or taking a shit, it's also reading or watching TV or movies (to which I'd add talking to real humans); the creative output of others can serve as your inspiration.

[Anonymous No.3601725]

>>3601719
Okay, I'll try watching some movies with a notebook so I can try and get some ideas.

[Anonymous No.3601737]

>>3601725
Start watching a movie, or tv episode and then stop the movie halfway and try to finish it in your head. Resolving the storylines.

Put movies in and start halfway in, try to figure out what could have led to the events happening at this point in the story.

Same thing with books, read halfway through or start halfway in. Doesn't even have to be a good book, it will get your imagination firing because the brain hates a partially complete pattern and will be on your side trying to fill in the details.

This works pretty good. And the bonus is that the things you brainstorm that don't match what actually happens in the story are all yours, you can use them in your own writing.

[Anonymous No.3602362]

7 tips from Hemingway on writing. I follow them religiously.

http://www.openculture.com/2013/02/seven_tips_from_ernest_hemingway_on_how_to_write_fiction.html

[Anonymous No.3604165]

bump for interest

[Anonymous No.3604177]

>>3602362
You might like to know that Hemingway thought that Dostoevsky broke number five all the time, yet wrote beautiful books. Just saying.

[Anonymous No.3604207]

A crime writer's arsenal.

"The Crime Writer's Handbook" is brilliant. It's an alphabetical resource of everything that you can use to kill people, how it works, real life examples and when it's been used in literature.
>plus obligatory Dictionary/Thesaurus without which I'd be lost

Not pictured: Bryson's Dictionary for Writers and Editors.

[Anonymous No.3606032]

The only writing prompt you need is "What is the story that I wish I could read?"

Then write it.

[Anonymous No.3606051]

>>3600695
Raymond Quneau - Exercises in Style