Post by account_disabled on Dec 26, 2023 22:02:23 GMT -7
When I started writing fiction I made the biggest mistake one could make: I had read little or nothing. I think that's the secret to learning to write: reading a mountain of books and trying to write stories. Dialogues, character characterization, suspense, setting construction, point of view , writing style, showing and not telling and other elements of narration are notions that can be learned online today. The problem is knowing how to invent stories : can we learn this important and fundamental part of creative writing? Books on writing: how useful are they? Let's start from the assumption that books on creative writing are completely useless . Books about writing don't teach you how to write. They don't solve writer's block.
They are not manna from heaven. Once you Special Data have learned Italian grammar - and for this it would be enough to have obtained a middle school diploma, if not just an elementary school diploma - the rest is just exercise, self-criticism and technique. Which can also be learned by reading a lot (not a lot, but a lot ). But there is something that no book or teacher will ever be able to teach: inventing stories . It is the imaginative power that every writer has and must have, if he wants to define himself as such. And you can't learn anywhere: either you have it or you don't. Yet another book on writing was recently released: How to Write Science Fiction by Robert Silverberg from the 451 publishing house. I knew the author, but I've never read anything by him.
The book's title is misleading, however: it doesn't explain how to write science fiction stories. What did he leave me? Almost nothing. Too self-congratulatory for my tastes. However, I found science fiction authors that I didn't know and a book that I managed to get: Greek Tragedy by HDF Kitto, unfortunately only in English. So far I have read 8 books on writing, but I have nothing left of most of them. No one, however, taught me anything about writing. What about creative writing courses? I can't talk about it because I've never been to one. And I won't frequent it. I've always been skeptical of these creative writing courses. Ask yourself a question: have the great writers of the past, but also of the present, attended writing courses? Yes, maybe some do. But most have learned to write by reading and writing. But they knew how to invent stories: they had ideas, they knew how to grasp them, they knew how to reinvent other people's ideas, exploit any inspiration they found. Their brains were always boiling, the gears always in motion. They just needed nothing to have an idea to write about.
They are not manna from heaven. Once you Special Data have learned Italian grammar - and for this it would be enough to have obtained a middle school diploma, if not just an elementary school diploma - the rest is just exercise, self-criticism and technique. Which can also be learned by reading a lot (not a lot, but a lot ). But there is something that no book or teacher will ever be able to teach: inventing stories . It is the imaginative power that every writer has and must have, if he wants to define himself as such. And you can't learn anywhere: either you have it or you don't. Yet another book on writing was recently released: How to Write Science Fiction by Robert Silverberg from the 451 publishing house. I knew the author, but I've never read anything by him.
The book's title is misleading, however: it doesn't explain how to write science fiction stories. What did he leave me? Almost nothing. Too self-congratulatory for my tastes. However, I found science fiction authors that I didn't know and a book that I managed to get: Greek Tragedy by HDF Kitto, unfortunately only in English. So far I have read 8 books on writing, but I have nothing left of most of them. No one, however, taught me anything about writing. What about creative writing courses? I can't talk about it because I've never been to one. And I won't frequent it. I've always been skeptical of these creative writing courses. Ask yourself a question: have the great writers of the past, but also of the present, attended writing courses? Yes, maybe some do. But most have learned to write by reading and writing. But they knew how to invent stories: they had ideas, they knew how to grasp them, they knew how to reinvent other people's ideas, exploit any inspiration they found. Their brains were always boiling, the gears always in motion. They just needed nothing to have an idea to write about.