10 quotes about improving your writing
We all write and read constantly - here are a few ideas on how to get better at it
We live in a time where we are all writing, all the time. We write emails, text messages, memos, presentations and more. But how much are we thinking about our writing and how to improve at it?
As an author, I think a lot about the craft of writing and try to learn how to do it well.
Here are 10 quotes that I’m chewing on about how to improve as an author
“Writers must therefore constantly ask: what am I trying to say? If you find that writing is hard, it’s because it is hard.” Zinser
“Story is the ultimate human technology, because without it, we wouldn’t be able to communicate in such a way as to build on the creativity of previous generations…Story allows you to show people things, rather than tell” Jyoti Guptara
“On the evolutionary scale, writing is a recent invention, at most eight-thousand years old…There is, however, a species-wide, ancient behavior underlying writing. Cognitive scientists call it joint attention, and we think it is the most sensible and practical place to begin learning to write. In joint attention, two or more people are attending to something, they know they are all attending to it.” - Clear and Simple as the Truth
Stories must reflect change over time - not just events…If there is no change it is an anecdote not a story…anecdotes are sugar highs - a moment but don’t resonate - Matthew Dicks
If you read all the time what other people have done you will think the way they thought. If you want to think new thoughts that are different, then do what a lot of creative people do - get the problem reasonably clear and then refuse to look at any answers until you’ve thought the problem through carefully how you would do it, how you could slightly change the problem to be the correct one. - Richard Hamming
“There is nothing better to spur creativity than a blank page or an empty bedroom,” Lin-Manuel Miranda
“As we read and learn, we master a vast number of abstractions (”chunks”), and each becomes a mental unit that we can bring to mind in an instant and share with others by uttering its name. An adult mind that is brimming with chunks is a powerful engine of reason, but it comes at a cost: a failure to communicate with other minds that have not mastered the same chunks.” Pinker
“Perfection is not when there is no more to add, but no more to take away” Antoine de Saint-Exupery
The practice and the work is what might create impact, not aiming to create impact Seth Godin
“What’s odd about you is what’s interesting. Work hard, and you can write like everyone else in your genre—but the result will never be as rich as the texture of your own personality. So don’t think too much about how it’s supposed to be done, what others are doing, or what the conventions demand. Just try to amuse yourself.” Henrik Karlsson