1) An essay doesn’t begin with a statement, but with a question An essay is something you write to try to figure something out. Figure out what? You don’t know yet. And so you can’t begin with a thesis, because you don’t have one, and may never have one. An essay doesn’t begin with a…

By Douglas Rushkoff From an entry on his June 1, 2002 weblog (an excerpt) One great function of the blog is to reach more people with the same message. Since I receive a few emails each week asking me to explain the best ways to “get started” as a writer or journalist, or to find…

1) Your true writer’s voice is rarely an expression of intention When I was 21 I wanted to write like Kafka. But, unfortunately for me, I wrote like a script editor for The Simpsons who’d briefly joined a religious cult and then discovered Foucault. –Zadie Smith, “This is how it feels to me,” The Guardian,…

1) If a phrase comes to you easily, look at it with deep suspicion If a phrase comes to you easily, look at it with deep suspicion — it’s probably one of the innumerable clichés which have woven their way so tightly into the fabric of travel writing that it takes a special effort not…

The following riff on the cliches of creative writing (and science fiction writing in particular) was featured in the “Readings” section of the July 2004 issue of Harper’s. [Cliches] STRANGELY FAMILIAR From a list of plots and themes of stories submitted “too frequently” to Strange Horizons, an online magazine of “speculative fiction.” The document was compiled…

1) Never explain something you can dramatize Master storytellers never explain. They do the hard, painfully creative thing — they dramatize. Audiences are rarely interested, and certainly never convinced, when forced to listen to the discussion of ideas. Dialogue, the natural talk of characters pursuing desire, is not a platform for the filmmaker’s philosophy. Explanations…

1) Narrative structure can be found everywhere Narrative structure can be found everywhere: in jokes, lab reports, historical accounts, personal essays, songs and ballads, news coverage, comic books, movies, sitcoms, and ballets such as the Nutcracker that tell a story through dance. Some television commercials are mini-narratives lasting only a few seconds without dialogue or…

1) Allow healthy separation between you and the first draft A bit of separation between you and your script is healthy. After a few weeks, you might even forget every word that you wrote. That is a good thing. It’s important to look at your script with fresh eyes, as a new reader would. Reread…

A “close reading” is a detailed examination of a text to study its design. The goal is to explore how an effective text works, and consider the decisions and strategies the author used in creating it. There is no rigid set of rules about how one must approach a close reading, but there are a…

1) The story begins to flow once you pinpoint the right idea The book is the idea. Once you have that idea, it just flows out. This is perhaps the best advice I can offer. Taking an idea, a central point, and pursuing it, turning it into a story that tells something about the way…

1) The better the villain, the better the hero The better the villain, the better the hero. The better the villain, the better the plot, because the villain is the one who’s usually driving the plot. I was very, very, very lucky to inherit [Hannibal Lecter]. I could not invent him to save my life.…