Memoir is the intersection of narration and reflection, of storytelling and essay writing. It can present its story and consider the meaning of the story. The first commandment of fiction—Show, Don’t Tell—is not part of the memoirist’s faith. Memoirists must show and tell.
PATRICIA HAMPL
Writing should be pleasurable, it should be fun, it should be exploratory. You should be writing about things that surprise you. That is the instinct for all kinds of art. All you need to do, really, is to take that instinct and transform it into craft.
JOYCE CAROL OATES
(1) They have something to say.
(2) They read widely and have done so since childhood.
(3) They possess what Isaac Asimov calls a “capacity for clear thought,” able to go from point to point in an orderly sequence, an A to Z approach.
(4) They’re geniuses at putting their emotions into words.
(5) They possess an insatiable curiosity, constantly asking Why and How.
JAMES J. KILPATRICK
My go-to model for my stories – a model that actually helps me write them – is that a story is a black box, into which the reader goes, and something happens. Something big and breathtaking and non-trivial. I don’t have to know what that thing is beforehand – it’s going to reveal itself to me at speed and I don’t need to be able to pithily reduce it. I just have to micro-manage the machinery inside the box so as to maximize the various effects – to sharpen the curves, so to speak. Now, mysteriously, thinking of stories this way does tend to produce themes and ethical resonance and all of that – how, I don’t know. But I’m OK with not knowing. I just want to get better at the doing.
GEORGE SAUNDERS
Do not try to puzzle your reader unnecessarily; a puzzled reader is an antagonistic reader. Do not expect him to guess why a character does something or how it happens that some remark is made; it may be that you want him to stop and wonder for a minute; if so, make it perfectly clear that everything is going to be all right later on.
SHIRLEY JACKSON
Figuring out what the public wants, or even what the public is: that's the job of pollsters and publicists and advertisers. All those people study the marketplace. But the creative artist can change the world. A true writer opens people's ears and eyes, not merely playing to the public, but changing minds and lives. This is sacred work.
ALLEGRA GOODMAN
Cut like crazy. Less is more. I've often read manuscripts–including my own–where I've got to the beginning of, say, chapter two and have thought: "This is where the novel should actually start." A huge amount of information about character and backstory can be conveyed through small detail. The emotional attachment you feel to a scene or a chapter will fade as you move on to other stories. Be business-like about it.
SARAH WATERS
Writing is linear and sequential; Sentence B must follow Sentence A, and Sentence C must follow Sentence B, and eventually you get to Sentence Z. The hard part of writing isn’t the writing; it’s the thinking. You can solve most of your writing problems if you stop after every sentence and ask: What does the reader need to know next?”
WILLIAM ZINSSER
I was Sinclair Lewis's secretary-chess-opponent-chauffeur-protegé back when I was 24, and he told me sternly that if I could be anything else be it, but if I HAD to be a writer, I might make it. He also said, as he threw away the first 75 expository pages of my first novel: “People read fiction for emotion—not information.”
BARNABY CONRAD
When writing goes painfully, when it’s hideously difficult, and one feels real despair (ah, the despair, silly as it is, is real!)–then naturally one ought to continue with the work; it would be cowardly to retreat. But when writing goes smoothly–why then one certainly should keep on working, since it would be stupid to stop. Consequently one is always writing or should be writing.
JOYCE CAROL OATES
Writerly wisdom of the ages collected by the author of Advice To Writers, The Big Book of Irony, and The Portable Curmudgeon.
Copyright © Jon Winokur 2019-2025. All rights reserved. Website by Wei-Haas Creative.
The trademark AdviceToWriters® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.