“The common word meaning ‘combustible’ is inflammable. But some people are thrown off by the in- and think inflammable means ‘not combustible.’ For this reason, trucks carrying gasoline or explosives are now marked FLAMMABLE. Unless you are operating such a truck and hence are concerned with the safety of children and illiterates, use inflammable.”
“To the popular question inquisitive guests and visiting journalists ask — “Doesn’t this wonderful view distract you?” — my answer is no. But I know some part of me is always busy with some part of the landscape, following the movements of the seagulls, trees and shadows, spotting boats and checking to see that the world is always there, always interesting and always a challenge to write about: an assurance that a writer needs to continue to write and a reader needs to continue to read.”
“As he stared at her ample bosom, he daydreamed of the dual Stromberg carburetors in his vintage Triumph Spitfire, highly functional yet pleasingly formed, perched prominently on top of the intake manifold, aching for experienced hands, the small knurled caps of the oil dampeners begging to be inspected and adjusted as described in chapter seven of the shop manual.”
Is Margaret Atwood here? Dougie said you guys would be into her so I went to the Indigo library and got The Edible Woman to see what the fuss was about. I didn’t get it – it isn’t like the other edible women I’ve downloaded.
Ladies and gentlemen, or, if I may, “Ford Nation,” it’s people like you who are my base. You’re clearly the ones I meet in Tim Hortons all the time. You’re the ones who tell me to “stay the course.” I’ve never sailed, but everybody in Tim Hortons is saying, “stay the course,” so I am going to stay the course. They tell me to stay the course at Arby’s. They tell me to stay the course at Swiss Chalet. They tell me to stay the course at Coffee Time. They tell me to stay the course at the 7-Eleven. They tell me to stay the course on the subways. They tell me to stay the course at Dollarama. They tell me to stay the course at Linens and Things, and sometimes at Bed, Bath and Beyond.
Ford Nation, I was elected because this city is on a gravy train, but let me tell you right now, we’re on a gravy plane and there’s only one person who should get the parachute – me, because there’s a lot of work to do, friends, and nobody is going to clean up the waste in this town like me. Waste. Waste. Waste. Waste. Waste. Subways. Waste. Touchdowns. Waste. Subways.
These are rules I’ve picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I’m writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what’s taking place in the story. If you have a facility for language and imagery and the sound of your voice pleases you, invisibility is not what you are after, and you can skip the rules. Still, you might look them over.
- Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
- Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
- Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
- Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.
- Start as close to the end as possible.
- Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
- Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
- Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
Kurt Vonnegut’s Eight Rules of Writing Fiction
- Use short sentences. Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English. Be positive, not negative.
- Eliminate every superfluous word, as “Funeral services will be at 2 o’clock Tuesday,” not “The funeral services will be held at the hour of 2 o’clock on Tuesday.” “He said” is better than “He said in the course of conversation.”
- Avoid the use of adjectives, especially such extravagant ones as “splendid,” “gorgeous,” “grand,” “magnificent,” etc.
- Be careful of the word “also.” It usually modifies the word it follows closest. “He, also, went” means “He, too, went.” “He went also” means he went in addition to taking some other action.
- Be careful of the word “only.” “He only had $10″ means he alone was the possessor of such wealth; “He had only $10″ means the ten was all the cash he possessed.
- A long quotation without introducing the speaker makes a poor lead especially and is bad at any time. Break into the quotation as soon as you can, thus: “‘I should prefer,’ the speaker said, ‘to let the reader know who I am as soon as possible.’”
Rules borrowed from the Kansas City Star.
“Those were the best rules I ever learned for the business of writing,” Hemingway told a reporter in 1940. “I’ve never forgotten them. No man with any talent, who feels and writes truly about the thing he is trying to say, can fail to write well if he abides with them.”
“I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.”
“Writing a first draft is like hitting the beach on D-Day. You don’t stop to tend the wounded or mourn the dead. If you don’t get off the beach, you’ll die there. Which means: the point of the first draft is not to get it right, but to get it written. Don’t go back and rewrite the first chapter until you’ve finished the last. Get off the beach. Otherwise, you may never get past page twenty.”
Matt Hughes
The National - Boxer
An album about the “unmagnificent lives of adults” - putting your feet up and having a drink while society shudders on and most of your old friends hardly know you and God doesn’t care and probably never did. And somehow there’s a small, warm comfort in it all: a dignity, maybe, in knowing that the universe may be meaningless but it is hardly ever random.
Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen
Full of neurotic energy and edgy howls and lurching beats, this album is like the dark side to Boxer where you know what, being insignificant is actually kind of terrifying and why isn’t anyone else freaking out right now? He’s pacing: I’m gonna do something about it, I swear I’m gonna do something. Jesus christ man, you say, and before you know it he’s passed out asleep in the corner and actually looks sort of peaceful. This album is like that guy.
