# Stein on Writing  ## Metadata - Author: [[Sol Stein]] - Full Title: Stein on Writing - Category: #books ## Highlights - correct intention, which is to provide the reader with an experience that is superior to the experiences the reader encounters in everyday life. ([Location 103](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=103)) - dissecting a piece of writing repeatedly until it surrendered its secrets. ([Location 127](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=127)) - rethink the sameness of my writing and to learn the value of variety. ([Location 132](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=132)) - a writer, shy or not, needs a tough skin, ([Location 133](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=133)) - What had been acceptable to the magazine was not acceptable to their higher standard. ([Location 144](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=144)) - two simple objectives of all prose writing, to be clear and to be precise. ([Location 145](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=145)) - Precision and clarity ([Location 145](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=145)) - read a few chapters of John Grisham’s The Firm, or some other transient bestseller, to see what they can learn from the mistakes of writers who don’t heed the precise meanings of the words they use. ([Location 158](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=158)) - learning to read as a writer. ([Location 161](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=161)) - what a writer deals with is the unspoken, what people see or sense in silence. ([Location 165](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=165)) - key to writing both fiction and nonfiction. It has to be a good experience for both partners, the writer and the reader, ([Location 169](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=169)) - Nonfiction conveys information. Fiction evokes emotion. ([Location 175](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=175)) - The fiction writer must avoid anything that distracts from the experience even momentarily. ([Location 178](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=178)) - When we write, we put down on paper what we think, know, or believe ([Location 195](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=195)) - we know and pay little attention to the effect on the reader. That is discourteous in life and unsuccessful in writing. ([Location 196](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=196)) - news story has become a story that contains the news. ([Location 206](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=206)) - Nonfiction stems from fact, and all attempts to evoke emotion in its readership cannot—or at least should not—take leave from its roots. ([Location 216](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=216)) - The writer becomes dispensable. The work must do the job. ([Location 231](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=231)) - The writers of thousands of academic articles and books each year, of hundreds of thousands of legal papers and millions of business memoranda, are discourteous to their readers and fail in their purpose. They do not understand the power of language or the techniques for its use. ([Location 239](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=239)) - Researchers, scientists, academicians marshal their facts to a higher standard, but with their neglect of the emotive power of language they often speak only to each other, their parochial words dropping like sand on a private desert. ([Location 248](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=248)) - The best of good writing will entice us into subjects and knowledge we would have declared were of no interest to us until we were seduced by the language they were dressed in. ([Location 254](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=254)) - Fiction and nonfiction both can benefit from the writer’s imagination as well as his memory. ([Location 259](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=259)) - The best of nonfiction, however, sets what it sees in a framework, what has happened elsewhere or in the past. ([Location 263](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=263)) - As the recorded events march before us, a scrim lifts to convey another dimension, the highlighting focuses our attention, sight becomes insight, reporting becomes art. The evidence is in this book. ([Location 264](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=264)) - What you need is practice. ([Location 274](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=274)) - Only writers, it ([Location 282](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=282)) - seems, expect to achieve some level of mastery without practice. ([Location 282](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=282)) - Christy Brown, ([Location 286](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=286)) - My Left Foot. ([Location 290](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=290)) - audiences give a film seven minutes. ([Location 312](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=312)) - Today’s impatient readers give a novelist fewer than seven minutes. ([Location 314](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=314)) - Today, first sentences and first paragraphs of any writing are increasingly important for arousing the restless reader. ([Location 320](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=320)) - The ideal goals of an opening paragraph are: 1. To excite the reader’s curiosity, preferably about a character or a relationship. 2. To introduce a setting. 3. To lend resonance to the story. ([Location 324](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=324)) - As readers, we are immediately interested in a character who wants something badly. ([Location 340](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=340)) - trigger of curiosity, ([Location 350](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=350)) - “narrative hook.” ([Location 351](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=351)) - It’s precise as to date and time and the number of people. ([Location 354](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=354)) - Saul Bellow, ([Location 383](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=383)) - engage the reader’s curiosity at the outset. ([Location 406](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=406)) - ask yourself about your own first sentence: ([Location 406](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=406)) - A craftsman like Cheever will season even the most conventional beginning with just enough that is unconventional to rouse the reader’s curiosity. ([Location 427](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=427)) - highlighting the ominous phrases. ([Location 442](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=442)) - Nabokov liked to have fun with his audience, and so in front of the book proper, he planted a mock Foreword supposedly written by a scholar. ([Location 464](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=464)) - The value of a well-written opening is that it makes the reader ready to give himself to the writer’s imagined people for the duration. ([Location 499](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=499)) - To the student of literature it should come as no surprise that news programs concentrate on bad news first, on events filled with conflict. ([Location 507](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=507)) - The reader’s apprehension has been raised. Something is going to happen. And it does. ([Location 530](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=530)) - The “engine” of both fiction and nonfiction is the point at which the reader makes the decision not to put the book down. The engine should start in the first three pages, the closer to the top of page one the better. ([Location 532](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=532)) - If your aim is publication, your best bet is to start with a scene that the reader can see. ([Location 562](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=562)) - Successful writing immerses the reader in heightened experience— ([Location 582](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=582)) - academic writing is counter-educational because its dullness insulates its information from nearly everybody. ([Location 585](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=585)) - repetition for effect— ([Location 643](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=643)) - A visual element can almost always be introduced to perk up a lead. ([Location 662](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=662)) - A visual touch can make them seem out-of-the-ordinary ([Location 670](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=670)) - trigger curiosity ([Location 723](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=723)) - What will the reader see ([Location 724](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=724)) - focused on an individual? ([Location 724](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=724)) - visible characteristic of that individual? ([Location 725](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=725)) - portrayed the individual doing ([Location 725](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=725)) - startling or odd fact ([Location 725](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=725)) - Can you bring a fresh insight to your first sentence? ([Location 746](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=746)) - Thomas Henry Huxley ([Location 791](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=791)) - “The Method of Scientific Investigation”: ([Location 793](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=793)) - The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of the necessary mode of working of the human mind. ([Location 794](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=794)) - Scientific investigation is a precise yet commonplace way of examining information. ([Location 803](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=803)) - The craft of creative writing is at least as complex as the craft of science. ([Location 809](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=809)) - Twentieth-century audiences now insist on seeing what they are reading. ([Location 824](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=824)) - description, narrative summary, and immediate scene— ([Location 828](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=828)) - immense help to a writer of nonfiction also. ([Location 828](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=828)) - Just as every form of writing that is expected to be read with pleasure moves away from abstraction, ([Location 836](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=836)) - description is not static. ([Location 845](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=845)) - key to description ([Location 846](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=846)) - Narrative summary, if written well and briefly, can transport the reader from one immediate scene to another, ([Location 854](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=854)) - “jump cutting,” ([Location 855](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=855)) - moving from one scene into the next with no transition ([Location 855](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=855)) - The tiny bit of action keeps the author from intruding with a summary. ([Location 872](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=872)) - My advice to writers yearning for publication is to minimize description, ([Location 882](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=882)) - Readers today insist on seeing characters onstage. ([Location 885](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=885)) - To keep the reader reading, you want his involvement to be a continuous experience. The best reading experiences defy interruption. ([Location 892](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=892)) - detect and remove interruptions of the reader’s experience. ([Location 896](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=896)) - if you want to improve your chances of publication, keep your story visible on stage and yourself mum. ([Location 904](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=904)) - the pace, or tempo, of a book in which fast is good and slow is bad. ([Location 3555](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=3555)) - Note that in addition to stepping up the pace, the clipped sentences and frequent paragraphing increase the tension. ([Location 3605](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=3605)) - Skipping steps can also increase the reader’s sense of pace. ([Location 3606](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=3606)) - The scene that the reader anticipates never happens. I was not being prudish. I did it to step up the pace. ([Location 3619](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=3619)) - Jump-cutting is also available to the nonfiction writer. Skipping in-between matter increases the reader’s sense of an agreeable pace, and keeps him turning the pages. ([Location 3634](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=3634)) - The quickest way of increasing the pace of a manuscript and strengthening it at the same time is to remove all adjectives and adverbs and then readmit the necessary few after careful testing. ([Location 3645](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=3645)) - Mark Twain said, “If you catch an adjective, kill it!” ([Location 3648](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=3648)) - Most adjectives and adverbs are dispensable. ([Location 3651](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=3651)) - Adjective surgery can be painful until you practice ([Location 3657](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=3657)) - it rigorously and examine the results. ([Location 3657](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=3657)) - using words for their precise meaning, ([Location 3677](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=3677)) - In cutting excess verbiage, keep words that help the reader visualize the precise image you are trying to fashion. ([Location 3683](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=3683)) - “lovely” is vague and “colorful” is specific ([Location 3688](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=3688)) - An adjective that piques the reader’s curiosity helps move a story along. ([Location 3698](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=3698)) - Any word or group of words that makes the reader ask “Why?” or “How?” also serves as an inducement for the reader to go on. ([Location 3701](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=3701)) - An adjective that is a necessity. ([Location 3707](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=3707)) - An adjective that stimulates the reader’s curiosity ([Location 3709](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=3709)) - An adjective that helps the reader visualize the precise image you want to project. ([Location 3711](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=3711)) - Small as these changes seem, cumulatively they have a powerful effect on prose. ([Location 3721](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=3721)) - a thoroughly believable scene of two trees who were once lovers ([Location 3879](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=3879)) - the originality of what is said and the originality of the way it is said. ([Location 3882](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=3882)) - I encountered writers who felt they didn’t make their mark because what they wrote was not sufficiently different from what other writers write. ([Location 3883](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=3883)) - shout down one last sentence. ([Location 3887](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=3887)) - revise it until you are convinced no one else could have said that sentence. ([Location 3890](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=3890)) - creating an original sentence that is strong and to the best of the writer’s ability, seemingly incontrovertible. ([Location 3906](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=3906)) - the intent to whisper can produce words that are stronger than shouted words. ([Location 3909](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=3909)) - I will divide all nonfiction into just two categories: practical and literary. ([Location 4074](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4074)) - Practical nonfiction ([Location 4075](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4075)) - The vocabulary of practical nonfiction is usually as simple as is permitted by the subject matter. ([Location 4079](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4079)) - Literary nonfiction ([Location 4080](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4080)) - insight about that information, presented with some originality, may predominate. ([Location 4081](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4081)) - Sometimes the subject of literary nonfiction may not at the outset be of great interest to the reader, but the character of the writing may lure the reader into that subject. ([Location 4082](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4082)) - Like fiction, nonfiction accomplishes its purpose better when it evokes emotion in the reader. ([Location 4091](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4091)) - Ideas seem to attract readers when developed through anecdotes involving people. ([Location 4094](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4094)) - dramatic conflict has been the basis of stories from the beginning of time. ([Location 4243](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4243)) - trapped in a crucible. ([Location 4270](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4270)) - crucible is an emotional or physical environment that bonds two people and that characters caught in a crucible won’t declare a truce. ([Location 4271](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4271)) - Nonfiction writing would be more dramatic and tap the reader’s emotions more if the crucible were considered more often in the planning stage. ([Location 4276](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4276)) - Suspense is a valuable technique for the writer who wants to make his reader keep turning pages. ([Location 4278](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4278)) - The first sentence tells what happened to the bus. The ([Location 4296](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4296)) - second sentence arouses curiosity as to who was the passenger who didn’t make it. ([Location 4296](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4296)) - keep the difference between tension and suspense ([Location 4353](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4353)) - in mind. ([Location 4354](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4354)) - Suspense arouses a feeling of anxious uncertainty in the reader ([Location 4354](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4354)) - Tension usually involves the sudden onset of a feeling of stress, ([Location 4355](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4355)) - The rush to end a good experience is counterproductive. The writer must discipline himself to hold back. ([Location 4380](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4380)) - Never intentionally misquote. And never invent dialogue. ([Location 4411](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4411)) - never to write anything inoffensive. ([Location 4419](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4419)) - What makes writing at its best interesting is the writer’s willingness to broach the unspeakable, ([Location 4423](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4423)) - The Art of the Personal Essay, edited by Phillip Lopate. ([Location 4500](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4500)) - writers tell us like it is. ([Location 4502](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4502)) - “a good read,” ([Location 4545](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4545)) - “a good book.” ([Location 4546](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4546)) - you write what you read. ([Location 4548](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4548)) - Diction involves the choice of words for their precise meaning and sound, ([Location 4565](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4565)) - It is not just detail that distinguishes good writing, it is detail that individualizes. ([Location 4599](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4599)) - particularities, the detail that differentiates one person from another, ([Location 4603](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4603)) - If an ordinary object is important to a story, particularization will help call attention to it. ([Location 4636](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4636)) - particularizing sometimes takes more words than a quick generalization. ([Location 4645](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4645)) - simplification is not necessarily appropriate if one’s aim is to provide an experience for the reader. ([Location 4649](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4649)) - In writing, the word “diction” refers to the choice of words, which is the activity of the writer as he is particularizing. ([Location 4715](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4715)) - nonfiction bestseller list and earn considerable sums for their authors almost always employ as much particularity as possible. ([Location 4722](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4722)) - A book can be said to be an accumulation of paragraphs. You work on one paragraph at a time. If you perfect a single paragraph, you have a model for a book. ([Location 4735](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4735)) - A good place to practice particularizing is in letters to friends. ([Location 4750](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4750)) - For a writer, top-of-the-head writing, even letter writing, is dangerous because the habit could carry over into your work. ([Location 4755](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4755)) - generalizations. ([Location 4766](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4766)) - inaccurate analogy, ([Location 4766](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4766)) - Inaccurate similes and metaphors have the effect of deflecting the reader’s attention from the story to the words on the page. ([Location 4795](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4795)) - One of the hazards is, of course, the mixed metaphor, ([Location 4814](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4814)) - check your manuscript for similes and metaphors that strain too much. ([Location 4833](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4833)) - you find spots of “bare bones” writing that could be improved by a simile or metaphor ([Location 4834](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4834)) - In writing it has come to mean an aura of significance beyond the components of a story. ([Location 4838](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4838)) - A hyperbole is, of course, an exaggeration that is not meant to be taken literally. ([Location 4884](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4884)) - The ideal resonance comes from the writing itself. ([Location 4943](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4943)) - The biggest difference between a writer and a would-be writer is their attitude toward rewriting. ([Location 4960](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4960)) - They know that writing is truly rewriting. ([Location 4974](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4974)) - What follows is a guide to the triage method of revision, which gives priority to those matters that are the principal causes of rejection by editors. ([Location 4987](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=4987)) - First drafts of nonfiction can be flawed in organization, quality control, interest, and language. ([Location 5213](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=5213)) - To avoid growing cold, I advocate fixing major things before starting on a page-by-page, front-to-back revision. ([Location 5222](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=5222)) - personify your subject matter in an incident involving an individual. ([Location 5226](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=5226)) - The ideal place for your first immediate scene is on page one. ([Location 5231](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=5231)) - ask yourself if it provokes sufficient curiosity in the reader. ([Location 5232](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=5232)) - Is there something visible on every page? ([Location 5255](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=5255)) - Add something visible. • Cut most adjectives and adverbs. • Cut clichés. • Replace or cut similes and metaphors that don’t work. ([Location 5262](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=5262)) - a writer is a manipulator for whom the end justifies the means, ([Location 5383](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=5383)) - TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR WRITERS ([Location 5385](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00HFUJP5Y&location=5385))