What are your principles of #writing? What books or articles have you read that were most helpful in improving how you write? #OnMilitaryWriting - ThreadSky

chrisgingram.bsky.social • 109 days ago

What are your principles of #writing?

What books or articles have you read that were most helpful in improving how you write?

#OnMilitaryWriting

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sorensjogren.bsky.social•109 days ago

The book King: A Memoir of the Craft helped demystify writing. It's a craft; it can be learned, but it is also hard work.

Principle: stop writing mid-sentence or while you are excited. That makes it easy to pick up and get going when you return.

dansukman.bsky.social•109 days ago

chrisseggerman.bsky.social•109 days ago

Nowadays one can subscribe to their website, but about 25 years ago my college library had a pile of The Paris Review Writers At Work books, with the interviews. Not so much on technique, or how-to, but "Here's how this person got it done."

mbgoransson.bsky.social•109 days ago

Brenda Ueland, If you want to write.

wjprom.bsky.social•109 days ago

Stephen King: On Writing

Ernest Hemingway: A Moveable Feast

Strunk & White: Elements of Style

mazjovanovich.bsky.social•109 days ago

We all need more Orwell in our lives, especially now.

chrisseggerman.bsky.social•109 days ago

Hadn't thought of this, but Politics And The English Language has a lot of things I wish I'd known earlier, especially the line about people writing in phrases rather than words. It clarified what bugged me about how so many comments on social media are written.

lovely-sport.bsky.social•108 days ago

Orwell ‘Politics and the English Language’.
Hazlitt - ‘On the difference between writing and speaking’ to start with.
The critic whom I forget - but suspect to have been Arthur Quiller Couch - who advised ’slaughter the innocents’ (cut the bits in your writing that you think are clever/impressive).

dawg4life99.bsky.social•109 days ago

Honestly, my ninth grade English teacher’s determination to get us to use action verbs instead of “to be” verbs.

Also, the Shakespearean quote, “Brevity is the soul of wit.”

drseminnis.bsky.social•109 days ago

Depends on the type of writing. I haven’t found books or articles particularly helpful. Talking with other writers about their practices has been most beneficial.

jenmills2483.bsky.social•109 days ago

https://youtu.be/vtIzMaLkCaM?si=PaFjWxmzjbPyPMv3

I found this video helpful for academic writing. Stephen Kings On Writing is great too.

42sms1701.bsky.social•109 days ago

However, what I started with was extrapolating those three-dimensional tactics onto a strategy derived from the Battle of Gaugamela.

42sms1701.bsky.social•109 days ago

And this was my go-to guide for my planning of a massive military operation that takes place in my book, with a special focus on submarine tactics because of the three-dimensional theater presented by both space and pelagic warfare.

42sms1701.bsky.social•109 days ago

I saw some wonderful advice from David Gerrold many years ago. If your content does not advance the plot or significantly advance character then it's extraneous to the story. That said, when time has to be accounted for in a story, that's when I see if there is character work I can include.

johnforsberg.bsky.social•109 days ago

The “Save The Cat” series was a tremendous help in organizing novels and my episodic video series. The author’s provided “beat sheet” outline has become a required part of my process now.

cphsecure.bsky.social•109 days ago

These two has helped my a lot

elenawicker.bsky.social•109 days ago

Stephen King, On Writing. My favorite so far.

nathankfinney.com•109 days ago

Seconded!

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