INTRO

            Creative writing is like lovemaking.  A caress on the edge of the neck is more sensual than a grab below.  Subtlety is supreme.

            It is a drama of contrasts.  The proper with the profligate.   A kiss on the cheek, a pinch on the bottom.  The authenticity of this, the falsity of that.  The live flowers of spring, the cut ones at a funeral.  It balances a smile with a teardrop, a truth with an absurdity, a curtsy with a fart.

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            It is a progression of scenes, each an acute embryo, one feeding into another and building to the bloody moment of birth.        

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SENTENCES

            There are only two ways of writing a sentence.  One is to breathe life into the words, a syllable at a time.  The other is to heave words at the paper.  The first involves heart and head, the second needs only a strong arm.          

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            Each sentence should cast a shadow.  The sense of the sentence should be clear, but the shadow should require extra thought from the reader.

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            Used right, obliquity adds texture to a sentence.  Used sloppily, it merely says something sideways.

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            A short sentence carries its own tension.  It’s an instant plug into the page.  The longer sentence, slowed by artifice, requires a search for the plug.

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            Sentences don’t come easily.  Those that do, you’ve been thinking about, consciously or not.  The sweetest meander in on their own, unannounced, unadorned, strikingly pure, and you ask yourself, “My God, did I write that?”  Odds are that the stranger in you did.

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            Some sentences carry the shape of a woman, deliver grace and charm, and exhibit flashes of intuition.  A masculine sentence, clean-shaved or stubbled, carries the force of the obvious.  Feminine sentences carry the delight of the unexpected and create the lilt of life.                

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            The best sentences are stringed instruments.


STYLE, MOOD, AND THE LIKE.  

            A writer shouldn’t shout.  The lower the voice, the deeper the effect.  In romantic scenes don’t gush, and in sexual scenes don’t pant.  Let the reader do that.  The same applies to murder and mayhem.   The reader should feel the stab in the back without being forced to see it.

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            Anyone can write fat.   Which means don’t pig out on words.  Too much description will crowd the reader’s head, cloud his eye, and prevent him from seeing for himself.

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            Understatement engages the reader and puts him in Drive.  Explicitness locks him in Neutral.  Overstatement grinds his gears.  Suggest what you want to say, then allow it to realize itself.

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            The work shivers with energy when the expressed and the unexpressed lash together as one.  Colors careen.  Meanings double.  Certainty and ambiguity coexist, as in physics, and author and reader share a moment that needn’t be explained.  And shouldn’t be.

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            To obscure what is as plain as the nose on your face and to make plain what is hidden: that’s the crux.

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            Style is the writer’s thumbprint on the page.  Organic, it grows and develops.  Failing to grow, it becomes self-parody, embarrassing to the writer, boring to the reader.

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            Style carries its own tension.  The cleaner and swifter the style, the more compelling the tension.  Tension is energy.  It empowers the pen.  It drives language.  It’s the living vine on which a story grows.  In a bad story it’s the ivy that holds up the crumbling wall.

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            Style should be more than embroidery.  If it isn’t engrained in the fabric, it’s mere frills and furbelows.

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            Inspired writing multiplies possibilities, and the language becomes powerful and explosive.  It can detonate in the mind, spurt sparks into the soul, and fire up metaphors.

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            Metaphors are miniature dramas that burn with light, emit high heat, and smolder in the reader’s brain.  They separate man from himself.  Birds have song, we have language.  Birds can fly in any direction, we can soar beyond.

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            Ambience is a mist sprayed over each sentence.  It is gossamer cloaking a mood, which may be ebullient, somber, or anything in between. 

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            Symbolism is the fugitive quest for significance.  The deeper the disguise, the greater (supposedly) the significance.  It’s risky business.  Symbols, simultaneously meant to conceal and reveal, risk concealing too little and revealing the obvious.

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            Imagery is a delightful sting to the reader’s senses. 

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            Pruning.  Painful for the writer, rewarding to the reader.

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            Dialogue is plural, fragmented into as many pieces as the story has characters.  The voice of one character should have its own beat, unlike that of any other character.  Words must fit that face and no one else’s.