A great instructional piece, Simone. I've profited from your advice on story length with my serialization efforts, at least as far as keeping the reader's attention at the front of my mind when I'm writing. It's something which comes with practice--the more you write and of course--read--the more you pick up in the way of how to economize on verbiage, how to police use of the passive, catch filter words, and other standard writing pitfalls, which sometimes can't be avoided, but only minimized. My difficulty has always been keeping the irrelevant out of the story--sometimes known as "info dumping" or just getting distracted or generating useless filler (I've found that I've cut out PAGES of this stuff). Sometimes the stuff you generate is useful later on--another writer's primary maxim should be "never throw out ANYTHING you write down." But it's hard staying focused sometimes on the matter at hand, again dependent largely on the genre and context probably--and again, your level of experience.
As for reading, it's a must for a writer--another prime maxim--I read often inside my genre--pulp detective stuff, action, action-adventure graphic novels, erotica, and of course, craft books. But I've been a lifelong voracious reader, so I mix the "writing" reading in with about 4 or 5 other books I've usually got going during any given week. Sometimes I'll put a book down and pick it up weeks or months later (for instance, I picked up "The Brothers Karamazov" for the umpteenth time--big Dostoevsky fan--a couple of months back and got to the part where Fyodor is murdered, then for some reason moved off to something else--this week I picked it up and I'm almost finished), or an issue I get fascinated with will attract my attention and I'll read a few books on that. Whatever I read, it's always profitable, whatever it is.
I completely agree with you never throw out anything maxim. I find it amazing how many of my discarded edits can inspire another story or article sometimes months or years after they were consigned to the archive file. I also agree with what you say about reading. I think you need to be 'in the mood' to read certain books. My example is Robert Radcliffe's Under An English Heaven. I bought it second-hand, read the first ten pages and put it to one side as it did not grab me. Years later I picked it up and read it cover to cover and found it totally engrossing.
A corollary is re-reading favorites regularly. There are myriad standards of mine which I find myself returning to time and again, and, like countless other bibliophiles, find things I totally missed on a prior read, or see something from a new perspective given new information I've since gleaned from another source, like an article, another book, even a high-quality podcast. The most recent work I've worn out to the extent that I've had to buy a new copy is Cormac McCarthy's outstandingly intricate and harrowing work "Blood Meridian, or, An Evening Redness in the West." That book has spawned books of its own, commentaries and concordances, and will be the subject of heated debate until the end of time! I always find new nuggets in Dante, of course, and ways out of writing difficulties in the psychological greats like Freud and Jung, especially when it comes to understanding people as they are--also just great for general knowledge purposes. Anything in the realm of myth and legend is also great for this, as is the 1611 King James Bible as a literary work in some parts, though I've really developed a deep fascination with ancient Gnostic beliefs at the moment, particularly the dualist systems--they speak to our contemporary situation quite accurately if one's into metaphysical speculation--you can draw lots of water from the well there.
A great instructional piece, Simone. I've profited from your advice on story length with my serialization efforts, at least as far as keeping the reader's attention at the front of my mind when I'm writing. It's something which comes with practice--the more you write and of course--read--the more you pick up in the way of how to economize on verbiage, how to police use of the passive, catch filter words, and other standard writing pitfalls, which sometimes can't be avoided, but only minimized. My difficulty has always been keeping the irrelevant out of the story--sometimes known as "info dumping" or just getting distracted or generating useless filler (I've found that I've cut out PAGES of this stuff). Sometimes the stuff you generate is useful later on--another writer's primary maxim should be "never throw out ANYTHING you write down." But it's hard staying focused sometimes on the matter at hand, again dependent largely on the genre and context probably--and again, your level of experience.
As for reading, it's a must for a writer--another prime maxim--I read often inside my genre--pulp detective stuff, action, action-adventure graphic novels, erotica, and of course, craft books. But I've been a lifelong voracious reader, so I mix the "writing" reading in with about 4 or 5 other books I've usually got going during any given week. Sometimes I'll put a book down and pick it up weeks or months later (for instance, I picked up "The Brothers Karamazov" for the umpteenth time--big Dostoevsky fan--a couple of months back and got to the part where Fyodor is murdered, then for some reason moved off to something else--this week I picked it up and I'm almost finished), or an issue I get fascinated with will attract my attention and I'll read a few books on that. Whatever I read, it's always profitable, whatever it is.
I completely agree with you never throw out anything maxim. I find it amazing how many of my discarded edits can inspire another story or article sometimes months or years after they were consigned to the archive file. I also agree with what you say about reading. I think you need to be 'in the mood' to read certain books. My example is Robert Radcliffe's Under An English Heaven. I bought it second-hand, read the first ten pages and put it to one side as it did not grab me. Years later I picked it up and read it cover to cover and found it totally engrossing.
A corollary is re-reading favorites regularly. There are myriad standards of mine which I find myself returning to time and again, and, like countless other bibliophiles, find things I totally missed on a prior read, or see something from a new perspective given new information I've since gleaned from another source, like an article, another book, even a high-quality podcast. The most recent work I've worn out to the extent that I've had to buy a new copy is Cormac McCarthy's outstandingly intricate and harrowing work "Blood Meridian, or, An Evening Redness in the West." That book has spawned books of its own, commentaries and concordances, and will be the subject of heated debate until the end of time! I always find new nuggets in Dante, of course, and ways out of writing difficulties in the psychological greats like Freud and Jung, especially when it comes to understanding people as they are--also just great for general knowledge purposes. Anything in the realm of myth and legend is also great for this, as is the 1611 King James Bible as a literary work in some parts, though I've really developed a deep fascination with ancient Gnostic beliefs at the moment, particularly the dualist systems--they speak to our contemporary situation quite accurately if one's into metaphysical speculation--you can draw lots of water from the well there.