Redheaded Neanderlady

Redheaded Neanderlady
This is a photoshopped version of something I found in National Geographic about the time I started researching

Saturday, August 23, 2008

More good writing advice

I periodically collect good writing advice from writers all over. This one is from the lady who runs Cute Writing, a blog full of all sorts of good stuff for writers. This one is about advice from an unfamous writer I never heard of and haven't ever read. But it's basically the same advice given by Stephen King in his book On Writing, which, I might add, is a very good book for people who want to be writers to take a look at. Basically, both of them say you should read all kinds of stuff: fiction, nonfiction, best-sellers and not-so-famous slog-alongers. The more you read, the more you develop an inner sense of good writing(I'll go more into that later, as there are two books I'm reading that illustrate certain things about good and bad writing, very, very well).What you don't want to do is to try to "copy" some best-selling author. You really want to try to develop your own style, whatever that may be. Otherwise, you just become a pale copy of the best selling author, writing "in the style of" Stephen King or whoever it is. I hardly consider myself an expert, since I'm pretty much learning my craft "by the seatit rmy pants", so to speak, but it really strikes me as very important, when two or more writers, both famous and not-so-famous, are essentially saying the same thing. As for me, I'm just trying to follow their advice while working on my Great Medieval Science Fiction Masterpiece With Neandertals. That's all I can do.
Anne G

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