10 Pieces of Writing Advice from Famous Authors
Because writers can always learn from each other, here are ten of my favorite pieces of writing advice from famous authors.
Read
“Read, read, read. Read everything - trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read!” – William Faulkner
Be yourself
“Start telling the stories that only you can tell, because there’ll always be better writers than you and there’ll always be smarter writers than you. There will always be people who are much better at doing this or doing that — but you are the only you.” ― Neil Gaiman
Believe in yourself
“And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” – Sylvia Plath
Don’t overthink it
“The intellect is a great danger to creativity… because you begin to rationalize and make up reasons for things, instead of staying with your own basic truth—who you are, what you are, what you want to be. I’ve had a sign over my typewriter for over 25 years now, which reads ‘Don’t think!’ You must never think at the typewriter—you must feel. Your intellect is always buried in that feeling anyway. – Ray Bradbury
Be specific
“Advice to young writers who want to get ahead without any annoying delays: don’t write about Man, write about a man.” - E. B. White
Write what you want to write, not what you think you’re supposed to
“Most such rules [about what’s currently trendy or saleable] are hogwash, and even sound ones may not apply to your story. What’s the use of a great recipe for soufflé if you’re making blintzes? The important thing is to know what it is you’re making, where your story is going, so that you use only the advice that genuinely helps you get there. The hell with soufflé, stick to your blintzes.
We make something good, a blintz, a story, by having worked at blintzmaking or storywriting till we’ve learned how to do it.” – Ursula K. Le Guin
Writing is work
“Don't romanticise your ‘vocation.’ You can either write good sentences or you can't. There is no ‘writer's lifestyle.’ All that matters is what you leave on the page.” – Zadie Smith
Complain
“Writing is terrible. Because it is terrible, it is appropriate to complain about it. It is enjoyable to complain about it. Complaining about writing is writing adjacent and therefore entirely professional.” – Kelly Link
Experiment!
“Inexperienced writers tend to seek the recipes for writing well. You buy the cookbook, you take the list of ingredients, you follow the directions, and behold! A masterpiece! The Never-Falling Soufflé!
Wouldn’t it be nice? But alas, there are no recipes. We have no Julia Child. Successful professional writers are not withholding mysterious secrets from eager beginners. The only way anybody ever learns to write well is by trying to write well. This usually begins by reading good writing by other people, and writing very badly by yourself, for a long time.
There are ‘secrets’ to making a story work — but they apply only to that particular writer and that particular story. You find out how to make the thing work by working at it — coming back to it, testing it, seeing where it sticks or wobbles or cheats, and figuring out how to make it go where it has to go.” - Ursula K. Le Guin
And most importantly…
“Don’t take anyone’s writing advice too seriously.” – Lev Grossman
BONUS
Though not exactly writing advice, this charming description of writing by George Elliott Clarke may inspire you to keep writing and to enjoy it just a little more.
When asked why he dared to be a writer, to think he had something to say, Clarke said:
“Writing is merely a mature form of crayon art. Like any three-year-old delighting in adding color to a page, the writer should delight in exhibiting his/her ‘colors’ in hopes that the joy in creativity will elicit a matching joy in welcome.” – George Elliott Clarke
About Samantha Fitzpatrick
Samantha Fitzpatrick is a writer and marketing professional based in St. John’s, NL (Canada). Her work has appeared in Resistance, Paragon, Paper Mill Press, and online on The Malahat Review, The Independent NL, Secret East, and Not Your Boys Club.