06Jul

My Writing Secret Weapon

• Saved in: A Real Piece of Work, Chris Orcutt Books, Craft, Fiction Writing, Reference Works, The Dakota Stevens Mysteries Series, The Rich Are Different, Writers, Writing Experiences, Writing Tools
• by Chris Orcutt
• with 3 Comments

For as long as I’ve been writing—over 20 years pro­fes­sion­al­ly now—I’ve col­lect­ed arti­cles on writ­ing, hand­writ­ten snatch­es from books on writ­ing, exam­ples from great authors, as well as my own tips, tricks and hard-won wis­dom on the art, and I’ve kept it all in a series of com­po­si­tion note­books titled “Notes on Writ­ing.”

These note­books are my Cliffs Notes of every (good) book or arti­cle I’ve read about writ­ing, and they’ve proved invalu­able over the years. Before start­ing a new project, rather than reread all of those books and arti­cles, I sim­ply reread the note­books, giv­ing myself a refresh­er course on sto­ry craft, char­ac­ter­i­za­tion, punc­tu­a­tion, inspi­ra­tion, gram­mar and much more.

These note­books are my secret weapon as a writer.

They are part­ly respon­si­ble for the excel­lent reviews my Dako­ta Stevens Mys­tery Series has been garnering—reviews like, “This book is mag­ic” and “Anoth­er one out of the park” and “Real life took a back­seat dur­ing the two days I was read­ing each of these books.” (Shame­less plug: Book #1, A Real Piece of Work, is avail­able here, and Book #2, The Rich Are Dif­fer­ent, here.)

I reread my “Notes on Writ­ing” before I start any major project, and I’m con­tin­u­ous­ly adding to these note­books from new books and arti­cles. I also steal lib­er­al­ly from my writer and artist friends, jot­ting down their own wis­dom with­out their knowl­edge, remind­ing myself that Picas­so said, “Good artists bor­row, but great artists steal.”

It’s a lot of work, and you have to be dili­gent about tedious things like copy­ing quotes and get­ting the titles and by-lines right, but in the end it’s worth it: you have your own go-to writ­ing resource. You nev­er have to ask your­self, “Where did I read that excel­lent pas­sage on char­ac­ter­i­za­tion?” You nev­er have to ask your­self that because, if it’s excel­lent, it will be in your notebook(s).

To help you get start­ed with a note­book of your own (if you don’t already have one), I’m going to share a few entries from mine. Fol­low­ing are only a frac­tion of the quotes and ideas I’ve col­lect­ed (I’m not giv­ing you all of my best secrets), but these exam­ples should be enough to inspire you to start col­lect­ing your own, and I strong­ly rec­om­mend that you do.

Bet­sy Lern­er, edi­tor & agent:

“If you are strug­gling with what you should be writ­ing, look at your scraps. Encod­ed there are the times and sub­jects that you should be grap­pling with as a writer.”

Kurt Von­negut:

“Make your char­ac­ters want some­thing right away—even if it’s only a glass of water. Char­ac­ters par­a­lyzed by the mean­ing­less­ness of mod­ern life still have to drink water from time to time.”

Stephen Koch, Mod­ern Library Writer’s Work­shop:

“Use the bad­ness of your first draft. Let the holes and dull spots tell you what needs to be filled and what needs to be cut.”

Ray Brad­bury:

“What can we writ­ers learn from lizards, lift from birds? In quick­ness is truth. The faster you blurt, the more swift­ly you write, the more hon­est you are.”

Seneca:

“Ars lon­ga, vita bre­vis.”

Tru­man Capote:

“The test of whether or not a writer has divined the nat­ur­al shape of his sto­ry is this: After read­ing it, can you imag­ine it dif­fer­ent­ly, or does it silence your imag­i­na­tion and seem to you absolute and final? As an orange is final. As an orange is some­thing nature has made just right.”

John Braine on dia­logue:

“If you can’t speak it out loud, it’s no good.”

Ethan Canin:

“Noth­ing is so impor­tant as a lik­able nar­ra­tor. Noth­ing holds a sto­ry togeth­er bet­ter.”

Rud­yard Kipling:

“…a tale from which pieces have been raked out is like a fire that has been poked. One does not know the oper­a­tion has been per­formed, but every­one feels the effect.”

George V. Hig­gins:

“Nobody ever got start­ed on a career as a writer by exer­cis­ing good judg­ment, and no one ever will, either, so the soon­er you break the habit of rely­ing on yours, the faster you will advance.”

John Gard­ner in The Art of Fic­tion:

“Scenes are the ‘log­ic’ of a fic­tion­al argu­ment.”

Chris Orcutt:

“Pre­fer pred­i­cate adjec­ti­val con­struc­tion over nom­i­na­tive adjec­ti­val construction—produces a clear­er set of images. Also, learn about syn­tac­tic slots (S‑V-O) and the impor­tance of not try­ing to pack all three slots with infor­ma­tion. Pack­ing slots clut­ters the sen­tence.”

and…

“The only short­cut in writ­ing is the knowl­edge that there are no short­cuts.”

From Tech­niques of the Sell­ing Writer:

“After a moti­vat­ing stim­u­lus to a char­ac­ter, the char­ac­ter’s reac­tions should come in the fol­low­ing order: feel­ing, action, speech.”

From Imme­di­ate Fic­tion:

“1 + 1 = 1/2.”

I’ll leave you to puz­zle over the mean­ing of that last one until you read Imme­di­ate Fic­tion your­self and dis­cov­er what he meant by that cryp­tic for­mu­la.

I hope you’re inspired now to run out, buy a com­po­si­tion note­book and start tak­ing notes your­self. Over the years, this process of read­ing, copy­ing down insights, and refer­ring to them lat­er has improved and deep­ened my writ­ing. It’s one of my secret weapons, and now I offer it to you. Good luck.

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