Writing

A novel that does not uncover a hitherto unknown segment of existence is immoral. Knowledge is the novel's only morality.

(Milan Kundera)

I cannot accept the doctrine that in poetry there is a »suspension of belief.« A poet must never make a statement simply because it is sounds poetically exciting; he must also believe it to be true.

W. H. Auden (1907 – 1973)

Writing is weird.

You make these scratches on paper and they mean something to you. Maybe something very profound. Maybe a shopping list.

But to some, they would be just symbols, squiggles. Nothing. Meaningless.

When I write down my thoughts, they become much clearer to me. I can understand better what I am actually thinking and feeling when I write it all down.

People would argue much less if they had to stop and put their thoughts down, coherently, on paper before they opened their mouths.

Introverts prefer to write out their feelings, while extroverts prefer to talk them out. Considering that many couples are intro/extrovert pairs, it's a wonder that any of us communicate effectively at all!

Consider and appreciate that the reader will respond according to their base of experience. As a writer, I don't try to force the reader to see my vision. For every reader there ia a different story. Part mine, part theirs – part truth, part fiction. I like to leave plots, themes and characters open for many examinations and associations, allowing and encouraging the reader to make the writing personal to them. The reader is an active participant in my work. The reader of good writing feels part of an invitation to create what they are reading. The writer of good writing presents combinations of images and thoughts designed to arrive, oddly familiar, as triggers into the idiosyncratic sub-terrain of a reader's thinking. Good writing is like trying to remember what the smell of onions frying reminds you of. Good writing, for me, is reading on the brink of deja vu, page after page.

Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.

Murdoch, Iris (1919)
Irish-born British novelist. The Black Prince, `Bradley Pearson's Foreword', 1974

In good writing, the burden of comprehension is on the writer, not on the reader.

This is why so many people fail as writers: They know what they mean to say – but others don't.

What young writers should remember is three words – clarity, clarity and clarity. So clear it snaps like an icicle in a Norwegian winter.