Ernest Hemingway on How to Write Fiction

Source: openculture.com.

As I work to become a better writer came across this advice from Hemingway and George Orwell. Really good stuff.

Hemingway never wrote a treatise on the art of writing fiction.  He did, however, leave behind a great many passages in letters, articles and books with opinions and advice on writing.

1: To get started, write one true sentence.

Hemingway had a simple trick for overcoming writer’s block. In a memorable passage in A Moveable Feast, he writes:

Sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, “Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say. If I started to write elaborately, or like someone introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut that scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written.

2: Always stop for the day while you still know what will happen next.

There is a difference between stopping and foundering. To make steady progress, having a daily word-count quota was far less important to Hemingway than making sure he never emptied the well of his imagination.

The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day when you are writing a novel you will never be stuck. That is the most valuable thing I can tell you so try to remember it.

3: Never think about the story when you’re not working.

Building on his previous advice, Hemingway says never to think about a story you are working on before you begin again the next day. “That way your subconscious will work on it all the time,” he writes in theEsquire piece. “But if you think about it consciously or worry about it you will kill it and your brain will be tired before you start.” He goes into more detail in A Moveable Feast:

4: When it’s time to work again, always start by reading what you’ve written so far.

T0 maintain continuity, Hemingway made a habit of reading over what he had already written before going further. In the 1935 Esquire article, he writes:

The best way is to read it all every day from the start, correcting as you go along, then go on from where you stopped the day before. When it gets so long that you can’t do this every day read back two or three chapters each day; then each week read it all from the start. That’s how you make it all of one piece.

5: Don’t describe an emotion–make it.

Close observation of life is critical to good writing, said Hemingway. The key is to not only watch and listen closely to external events, but to also notice any emotion stirred in you by the events and then trace back and identify precisely what it was that caused the emotion. If you can identify the concrete action or sensation that caused the emotion and present it accurately and fully rounded in your story, your readers should feel the same emotion. In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway writes about his early struggle to master this:

I was trying to write then and I found the greatest difficulty, aside from knowing truly what you really felt, rather than what you were supposed to feel, and had been taught to feel, was to put down what really happened in action; what the actual things were which produced the emotion that you experienced. In writing for a newspaper you told what happened and, with one trick and another, you communicated the emotion aided by the element of timeliness which gives a certain emotion to any account of something that has happened on that day; but the real thing, the sequence of motion and fact which made the emotion and which would be as valid in a year or in ten years or, with luck and if you stated it purely enough, always, was beyond me and I was working very hard to get it.

6: Be Brief.

Hemingway was contemptuous of writers who, as he put it, “never learned how to say no to a typewriter.”

George Orwell's writing rules                 

George Orwell, writer of Nineteen Eighty-four and Animal Farm, began his career as an advertising copywriter. This experience helped him to create a few simple writing rules, which we can use to ensure our writing is clear, direct and effective.

1  Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print

INSTEAD OF ... cutting-edge producers

USE ... leading producers, the kind of producers that others follow, the industry's most original producers

2  Never use a long word where a short one will do

INSTEAD OF ... expeditive, accomodating or monumental

USE ... quick, helpful or large

3 If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out

INSTEAD OF ... Jessica Fletcher, Penguin's newest, freshest writer, is already exploring themes of great importance - faith, familial bonds - in her first two novels, Banjo Mansion and Yes, I Have Potato

USE ... Jessica Fletcher, explores faith and familial bonds in her novels, Banjo Mansion and Yes, I Have Potato

4 Never use the passive where you can use the active

INSTEAD OF ... It was understood by the team that Susan's visit was a great success

USE ... The team understood that Susan's visit was a great success

5 Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent

INSTEAD OF ... In the spirit of carpe diem, the management team blue-skied proposals on the aortic behaviour of cupid's arrow

USE ... The managers took the opportunity to think creatively about love

6 Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous

Centre for New Writing — University of Leicester

Two of my Flash Fiction pieces titled, FOOTSTEPS and A CONVERSATION have been commissioned by the University of Leicester. They will appear on their website www2.le.ac.uk in July, and later published in an e-book.

The worthwhile project details are below.

The Sole2Soul project is creating new digital assets for the Falkner Boot and Shoe exhibit at Harborough Museum (Market Harborough). These include new creative writing (flash fiction, twitter fiction and poetry), photography and podcasts. The project is designed to increase Harborough Museum’s visitor numbers and to attract more online traffic to the Museum website.

 The project concept is best expressed as follows: wise souls talk to teen souls about shoe soles. Silver champions will join forces with writers and curators to stimulate teenage engagement with Boot and Shoe artefacts. In response, teenage pupils from local schools will produce a web-gallery of “Future Curators” pages about the exhibit. In December 2014, all participants will be invited to an event where the new digital assets will be launched.

Sole2Soul will provide new digital assets for the Falkner Boot and Shoe exhibit:

A mobile phone app for museum visitors (a downloadable application for smartphones)

“Future Curators” webpages by teenagers, accompanied by podcasts about their experience.

A radio programme about the project.

30 experienced writers will visit the Boot and Shoe exhibit and produce 30 pieces of creative writing in the following forms, which are best suited to digital transmission: story tweets, flash fiction (200 words) and poems. These writers will present these creative pieces on social media platforms such as Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter.

A smartphone app is created and tested. The app will encourage museum visitors to access the project’s digital assets. Visitors’ physical location in the museum will prompt particular pieces of information or creative writing to appear on their phone screens.

Teenagers from local schools attend three workshops at Harborough Museum. Curators guide pupils around the Boot and Shoe exhibit. Pupils will be presented with all the creative writing produced about the Boot and Shoe exhibit produced during phase one (commission) and phase two (narrate). 

The Sole2Soul creative writing commissions will be showcased at the Literary Leicester Fringe festival in November 2014.

Harborough Museum’s new digital assets will be unveiled at a launch event in December 2014, to which curators, journalists, project participants and writers will be invited.

The writers will be able to list the commission on their CV (‘awarded an Arts Council-funded Sole2Soul commission, 2014’). 

They will be invited to showcase their Sole2Soul piece at the Literary Leicester Fringe 2014, for which writers will be paid a fee. 

All commissions will be published in an e-book, which will become part of the museum’s new digital assets.

PIGEONS AND THE CROW

TODAY as I sat on a bench to have my lunch a couple of pigeons flew towards me. They waited on the flagged paving stones for some scraps of bread. A party of pigeons sometimes sends a one legged or frail looking bird first in order to gain your sympathy. It actually hops on one leg in front of you, back and forth, then sits down miserably and stares at you. Who said pigeons were stupid? You are almost compelled to share a part of your food, unless you’re a greedy son-of-a-gun, and there are lots of them in the world as it is. As soon as you throw the bread, all the others rush down from the trees and the tall building ledges and finish the food. There’s a flurry of activity, flapping of wings, throwing up the pieces of bread with their beaks; the stronger one’s fighting off the weaker; yet in the frenzy they all manage to eat something.

I threw the bread towards the pigeons and the birds broke the bread in three pieces, then another ten or so birds gathered. As they were about to eat however, a crow swooped down and scattered the pigeons.

It was a very rude interruption.

The crow was a strong and very sinister looking bird, black eyes and beak. It started to peck at the bread; every time the pigeons tried to get near the bread the crow drove them back. I watched nature’s play. What would happen now? Would the poor pigeons get anything to eat?

The greedy and strong crow pecked at the bread whilst the pigeons strutted glumly in a circle. It surprised me that the crow was unwilling to part with any of the bread. It just wouldn’t let any of the pigeons eat. It all seemed so unfair and yet I decided to see what would happen without my intervention.

No sooner had I thought this, when from my right an old man appeared; his face furious at the situation in front of him, i.e. a single crow hoarding all the food. The timing of his arrival surprised me as well.

He moved towards the crow with his walking stick and forced it to flee; the crow even dropped the piece of bread in its mouth as it fled in a panic. Then the old fella stood guard whilst the pigeons started to eat in peace.

HEREIN I reflected lay several lessons.

1- If you’re struggling with difficulties and injustice and it appears that you cannot win or carry on; keep a little faith, keep fighting and be patient. Help will arrive. The higher powers will not tolerate injustice, they will send help in one form or another.

2- If you are blessed with power and wealth, then learn to share; otherwise it will be taken away from you. An old man will drive you away with his stick.

John Steinbeck's writing advice.

1-Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.

2-Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.

3-Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn’t exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.

4-If a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it—bypass it and go on. When you have finished the whole you can come back to it and then you may find that the reason it gave trouble is because it didn’t belong there.

5-Beware of a scene that becomes too dear to you, dearer than the rest. It will usually be found that it is out of drawing.

6-If you are using dialogue—say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.

But perhaps most paradoxically yet poetically, twelve years prior — in 1963, immediately after receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature “for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception” — Steinbeck issued a thoughtful disclaimer to all such advice:

If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another. The formula seems to lie solely in the aching urge of the writer to convey something he feels important to the reader. If the writer has that urge, he may sometimes, but by no means always, find the way to do it. You must perceive the excellence that makes a good story good or the errors that makes a bad story. For a bad story is only an ineffective story.”

Steinbeck is one of my favourite authors and his advice given years ago in an Paris Review interview is as valid today as it ever was.

MAYA

“THE World is Maya, an illusion; fools, don’t chase after the transient, it will cause heartache. Follow the holy path, its difficult brothers and sisters but if you’re vigilant, nothing can delude you. You are free, eternal and full of bliss; don’t become attached to petty material objects. Look to me for inspiration, I’ve taken Sanyasa and donned the ochre robes. I’m only twenty-five with life before me and yet if I can succeed then all of you can!”

     Spontaneous applause filled the hall for the Swami, who had entered the monastic order just a year ago. He was an eloquent speaker, knowledgeable but he forbade anyone from touching him; this would have polluted his sense of worth. People fell at his feet from a distance. He was a strict vegetarian and berated everyone for their worldly attachments to relatives and wealth. Give them up! He exclaimed everywhere.

Of course people admired such detachment but complained that his advice was extreme. On several occasions the Swami had grown angry at this perceived weakness. He was an expert on the Bhagavad Gita as well as other holy texts. He read them to impress his listeners.

     In July, he came to a village. A young woman of nineteen was assigned to serve the Swami his food. She had large eyes, dark hair and comely hips. She placed the plate in front of him and would say nothing apart from ‘would Swami like anything else?’ He liked her sincere attitude and service. Each night after the sermon, he made her sit and gave her religious knowledge. She sat gazing boldly into his eyes.

The Swami extended his stay and the people were delighted. He wanted to teach the young woman more topics as she was an eager student. When he asked her after six days whether she had understood his teachings, she replied that she didn’t care for them at all. He was astonished.

She grabbed his hand and at the touch electricity passed through him. She had fallen madly in love she said and would commit suicide if he left without her. Then she embraced him and kissed him passionately on the lips. He tried to push her back without success.

The next day, villagers were shaking their heads in amazement. They saw the Swami skipping lightly after the wide eyed beauty in a field, happy and full of joy.

ps. This was a lighthearted short story I wrote and was selected in the Inspired by Tagore Competition. I hope people who visit this site enjoy it. Vijay Medtia.

Short extract from Balzac.

I liked this dialogue from that great fine writer Balzac. Something to lift my spirits in these dark days of winter.


The two men paced up and down the Luxembourg gardens.
 'It costs a lot,' said Daniel in his gentle voice, 'to become a great man. The works of genius are watered with tears. Talent is a living organism whose infancy, like that of all creatures, is liable to malady. Society rejects defective talent as Nature sweeps away weak or misshapen creatures. Whoever wishes to rise above the common level must be prepared for  a great struggle and recoil before no obstacle. A great writer is just simply a martyr whom the stake cannot kill.
If at heart you do not have the great patience and will-power required then give up this very day.'

 'You also expect to suffer great trials? asked Lucien.

 'Ordeals of every kind. Calumny, treachery, injustice from my rivals; effrontery, trickery, ruthlessness from the business world. If you are doing fine work, what do these setbacks matter?'

BABY JESUS

AT the time when Herod was king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah. His wife’s name was Elizabeth and she also belonged to a priestly family. They were both righteous in their conduct but there was sadness because Elizabeth could not have any children. They were both quite old and this hope was fading. Zechariah went to the Temple to do his priestly duty according to custom, and it was his turn to burn the incense on the altar. So he went inside the Temple of the Lord while the crowd of people prayed outside during the hour when the incense is burned.

     As he stood inside, an angel appeared to him standing to the right of the altar. Zechariah saw him and felt afraid.

 -Don’t be alarmed Zechariah, said the angel. God has heard your prayer and your wife will bear you a son. You are to name him John. He will bring you and many others happiness and he will be a great man in the Lord’s sight. He must not drink any wine or strong liquor, he will be filled with the Holy Spirit and he will bring back many people back to the Lord. John will become a mighty prophet and he will turn people back from unrighteous conduct and make them ready for the Lord who is yet to come.

 -How shall I know if this is so? I am an old man and my wife is old also.

 -I am Gabriel the angel. I stand in the presence of God, who sent me to speak to you and tell you this good news. But because you have doubted my words, which will come true at the right time, you will remain silent until the day my promise to you comes true.

The angel disappeared and Zechariah came out of the Temple. People asked him why he had taken so long but he could only make signs. And they understood that he had seen a vision and left talking amongst themselves. After some time his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and did not leave the house for five months. Now at last the Lord has heard my urgent prayer and helped me. He has taken away my sadness, she thought.

     In the sixth month of her pregnancy the angel Gabriel went to a town in Galilee named Nazareth. He appeared before a young woman promised in marriage to a man named Joseph. The woman’s name was Mary.

 -Peace be with you. The Lord has greatly blessed you, said Gabriel. Do not be afraid Mary, God has been gracious to you and you will become pregnant and give birth to a son. You will name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son of God. The Lord will make him king of the descendants of Jacob forever and his kingdom will never end.

Mary looked at the floor and said- I am a virgin. How then can this be? She was much troubled in her heart.

 -The Holy Spirit will come upon you and for this reason the child will be called the son of God. Remember your relative Elizabeth; she is herself now six months pregnant even though she is old. There is nothing that God cannot do.

 -I am the Lord’s servant, said Mary. May it happen as you have said.

     Eager to see the news for herself, Mary got ready and hurried off to a town in the hill country of Judaea. She arrived at Zechariah’s house and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greetings, the baby moved within in her. Elizabeth was filled with emotion and she said in a loud voice.

 -You are the most blessed of all women Mary and blessed is the child you will bear! Why should this great thing happen to me, that my Lord’s mother comes to visit me? How happy you are to believe the message of the Lord!

Mary too overcome with emotion and joy, sang this song of praise with a heart over flowing with love.

  ‘My heart praises the Lord, my soul is glad because God

   My saviour has remembered me his lowly servant.

   From now on people will call me happy because of the

   Great things the mighty god has done for me.

   His name is holy, he shows mercy to those who honour him,

   He has stretched out his mighty arm and scattered the proud

   With all their devious plans. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent

the rich away with empty hands.

    He has kept this promise he made to our ancestors and

   Shown mercy to Abraham and all his descendants forever.

     She stayed with Elizabeth for some time before returning home. It wasn't long before the time came for Elizabeth to have her baby and she gave birth to as son. The joy she felt could not be described, her neighbour and relatives heard how gracious the Lord had been to her and they all rejoiced. When the baby was a week old, they thought to name him Zechariah after his father. But Elizabeth said, his name is to be John.

The relatives asked Zechariah and he wrote on a tablet- his name is to be John.

At that moment, he was able to speak again and he too started to praise the Lord with love overflowing in his heart. The neighbours were filled with fear and the news about these things spread through the hill country of Judaea. Everyone wondered about the child and what he might achieve, for it was plain that the Lord’s power was upon him. The child grew and developed in body and spirit. He lived in the desert until the day he appeared publicly to the people of Judaea.

Mary was engaged to Joseph but before they were married she found out that she was pregnant. Joseph was a man who always did what was right and when he heard about Mary, he was much troubled in his heart. Yet he did not want to disgrace Mary publicly and so he made private plans to break the engagement.

Whilst sleeping one night however an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said.

-Joseph, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For it is by the Holy Spirit that she has conceived. She will have a son and you will name him Jesus, because he will save people from their sins.

     When he awoke his troubles seemed to have been removed and he felt a peace in his heart. He got ready making the final preparations and married Mary as the angel had told him to do so. A census took place at this time by the order of the emperor Augustus, throughout the Roman Empire. Everyone then went to register himself, each to his own town. Joseph went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to the town of Bethlehem in Judaea.

He went with Mary who was pregnant and whilst coming into Bethlehem, the time came for her to have her baby. She gave birth to her first son, wrapped him in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, as there was no room for them in to stay in the inn.

     There were some shepherds in that part of the country who were spending the night in the fields, taking care of their flock. A light appeared and an angel came close to them. They were scared but the angel said.

 -I am here with news for you which will bring great joy to all the people. This very day in Bethlehem, your saviour is born. Christ the Lord! The proof will be that you will find the baby wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a manger. Glory to God in Heaven and peace on earth to those with whom he is pleased!

     The shepherds said to one another, let us proceed to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened. So they hurried, found Mary and Joseph and saw the baby lying in a manger. When the shepherds met them, they told them what the angel had said about the child. All who heard it were filled with joy and the shepherd left singing the Lord’s praises.

A week later when the time came for the baby to be named, he was named Jesus; the name which the angel had given them before he had been conceived. The time came for Mary and Joseph to perform the ceremony of purification as the law of Moses commanded. So they took the child to Jerusalem to the Temple of the Lord.

     There was a man named Simeon living in Jerusalem. He was a good devout man- the Holy Spirit was with him and he had been assured that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s promised Messiah. Simeon went into the Temple and took the child in his arms and gave thanks to the Lord.

 -Now Lord you have kept your promise, your servant may now go in peace, with my own eyes I have seen the salvation, which you have sent down to the people, a light to reveal your will. Bringing glory to the world.

Mary and Joseph were amazed at the hearing of this and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary.

 -Blessed, blessed are you Mary. This child will bring salvation to many, he will spread God’s message and stand as a sign against the many who speak ill of God’s ways.

When they finished all that was required of them, they left the Temple and returned to their home town of Nazareth in Galilee. The child grew and became strong, he was full of wisdom and God’s blessings were upon him.

                                                                          ---

This is a story I wrote from the Bible, changing it into a modern vernacular. A story I liked for Xmas. I hope people who visit my site like it too.