Prompts for Writers and Inspiration for Readers
Mark Forsyth On Poets
““When healthy people fall in love, they buy a bunch of flowers or an engagement ring and go and Do Something About It. When poets fall in love, they make a list of their loved one’s body parts and attach similes to them… These lists are almost universally awkward.”” (Mark Forsyth, The Elements of Eloquence)
Monday Ignition: Characters in Flux, Identities Under Pressure Exercise
Monday Ignition: Characters in Flux, Identities Under Pressure Exercise If you design character growth deliberately, you usually erase it. Change becomes legible only when the writer stops protecting the character’s coherence and allows the scene to damage their self-understanding in ways the story never repairs. Key writing practice techniques at work here: 1. Character revealed…
Marisha Pessl Description Mastery
“This phony demurring was everything I expected from Beckman. Questioning him was always a rain dance around a campfire, requiring a delicate touch and three or four bottles of this vodka, which was more potent than opium and doubtless had origins in some Siberian bathtub.” (Marisha Pessl, Night Film)
Natalie Goldberg On Sensory Writing
“Sometime, you might want to try a short practice: go to the same coffee shop for seven days in a row, the same hour, the same seat and record what’s in front of you, what you hear, see, smell, taste. No interpretation.” (Natalie Goldberg, The True Secret of Writing)
James Wood On Details
“In Flaubert and his successors we have the sense that the ideal of writing is a procession of strung details, a necklace of noticings, and that this is sometimes an obstruction to seeing, not an aid.” (James Wood, How Fiction Works)
Diane Setterfield On Reading
“Thanks to my work, I am experienced in the reading of difficult manuscripts. There is no great secret to it. Patience and practice are all that is required. That and the willingness to cultivate an inner eye. When you read a manuscript that has been damaged by water, fire, light or just the passing of…
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