What are two or three of the most valuable suggestions you could give to a beginner? To a practised writer?
Answers
Bill Adams: In the matter of hints—to beginners—don't begin yet. Wait till you've had a chance to learn a bit more. To practised writers, "For God's sake don't talk so much."
Samuel Hopkins Adams: To a beginner: to learn to look at men and things directly, not obliquely, to write what you want to write, not what others want you to write; to adopt and cling to their creed, abominated or considered heretical by most non-writers, that fiction is and always must be more interesting and compact than life, or it is not fiction.
As for advising a practised writer: why invite one to practise an impertinence toward those who know as much of the craft as I myself do?
Paul L. Anderson: To read analytically. To write.
William Ashley Anderson: A beginner ought to read voraciously, learning to distinguish the real from the false. He ought to study both history and literature. And he ought to start off with the thorough realization that the great writers were great thinkers, regular men and hard workers. He ought never make a pose of writing, but go at it, rather, as though it were a real job. There is nothing to say to a practised writer except that he ought to have an ideal and set high standards for himself, otherwise he will inevitably become hack. A writer must sooner or later show his personality in his works, and if he has no personality (it may be a personality formed by his brain and character; his physical appearance has nothing to do with it) he can never hope for continued success.
H. C. Bailey: To a beginner—know people and sympathize with them. To a practised writer—don't use the same characters.
Edwin Balmer: To try it on editors and get their real reactions. Not to think you're good.
Ralph Henry Barbour: Suggestions to the beginner? Nothing new, certainly. Make your stories real, though. Have real characters, let them act naturally in natural scenes and talk natural talk. Don't strive for a "style." That comes. Or doesn't come. It doesn't matter in either case. I'm one of the old-fashioned sort who believe that writing is something that can't be learned as you learn china painting or bridge or how to conduct one's self in good society. I have a hunch that the ability to write anything any one else wants to read is somewhere inside one when one lets out the first infantile squall. I may be wrong. Writing, after all, is just a method of self-expression, like painting, music, sculpture. Successful musicians are not made. They may be perfected. That is likewise true of painters and sculptors. However, there are all grades of musicians, and likewise there are many grades of writers. Even a little natural ability will get you somewhere if you cultivate it. Any one who wants to write has my sympathy and good wishes. I say go to it. Only, if you're taking up writing merely because it looks like an easy path to affluence or because you're tired of gas-fitting or selling automobiles or doing housework, don't be disappointed if editors seem hard-hearted. To the practised writer I have no suggestions to make. I'm not that cheeky.