Writing Tips from Steinbeck

Stew21 · Mar 13, 2012

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/03/6-writing-tips-from-john-steinbeck/254351/
here's the first:

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.

I also like this follow-up which is a disclaimer for the 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."

Nonuw · Mar 13, 2012

Thanks for the tips from Steinbeck. I like the one where he suggests to finish a page a day. That's doable, right? Right? (I convince myself to get writing).

Stew21 · Mar 13, 2012

i like the first one. Because getting it "done" can be overwhelming. So if you scrap the idea of "finished" it takes the pressure off. I need that. I put a lot of pressure on myself about stuff that isn't done.

Also, I'm a very firm believer in his comments regarding getting it all down on paper and then doing revision, so that was cool.

LongWave · Mar 13, 2012

Stew21 said:
i like the first one. Because getting it "done" can be overwhelming. So if you scrap the idea of "finished" it takes the pressure off. I need that. I put a lot of pressure on myself about stuff that isn't done.

Also, I'm a very firm believer in his comments regarding getting it all down on paper and then doing revision, so that was cool.

Good points. The only reason I finished my first draft was because I never thought I'd finish it! lol

Jamesaritchie · Mar 13, 2012

I think Steinbeck's advice of one page per day is more than a little misleading. He frequently wrote considerably more than this, and a page per day or not, he claimed to have pencil in hand, actively writing, for six hours each day. He also went through up to sixty pencils on the average day. When not wrking on his novel, he was still writing something.

Too many take this page per day advice to mean sitting down and turning out a page in twenty minutes, and calling it quits. This isn't what Steinbeck did.

Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper, but only write a page per day? Keep a pencil in hand for six hours, and burn through sixty of them, but only write one page per day? I don't think so.

I've seen the page per day advice from many writers, but while I'm sure there are some out there, none of the writers I've seen this advice from actually follow it themselves.

It's probably excellent advice for a writer so strapped for time than more than a page per day is impossible, but lousy advice for anyone else.

The rest of his advice worked very well for him, but doesn't work at all for many other writers.

ChaosTitan · Mar 13, 2012

Jamesaritchie said:
I think Steinbeck's advice of one page per day is more than a little misleading.

<snip>

It's probably excellent advice for a writer so strapped for time than more than a page per day is impossible, but lousy advice for anyone else.

I think it's only bad advice if it's taken literally. I don't see it as "write one page a day and then quit." He can also be suggesting you ignore the larger 400 page goal and instead focus on one page at a time. Finish that single page, then move on to the next. Smaller goals like this can be less intimidating to new writers who may balk at the idea of a full 400 pages of text.

Mharvey · Mar 13, 2012

Jamesaritchie said:
I think Steinbeck's advice of one page per day is more than a little misleading. He frequently wrote considerably more than this, and a page per day or not, he claimed to have pencil in hand, actively writing, for six hours each day. He also went through up to sixty pencils on the average day. When not wrking on his novel, he was still writing something.

Too many take this page per day advice to mean sitting down and turning out a page in twenty minutes, and calling it quits. This isn't what Steinbeck did.

Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper, but only write a page per day? Keep a pencil in hand for six hours, and burn through sixty of them, but only write one page per day? I don't think so.

I've seen the page per day advice from many writers, but while I'm sure there are some out there, none of the writers I've seen this advice from actually follow it themselves.

It's probably excellent advice for a writer so strapped for time than more than a page per day is impossible, but lousy advice for anyone else.

The rest of his advice worked very well for him, but doesn't work at all for many other writers.

I gotta go with James on this one. I think the advice of a page per day is actually pretty bad. I mean, if you can't encourage yourself to write more than a page a day, then I think you're in the wrong profession.

There's times in your life where you get distracted. I know when I was working in LA, I burned myself out to the point where I couldn't turn my mind on after work and didn't write for a few months. I missed it so much, but I stopped pursuing my writing career for that time. Since then, I got my energy back and now I can't stop writing again and it feels GREAT.

But if - every day - you wake up with that credio of: "Okay, I gotta somehow motivate myself to write 300-400 words today"... you really think you need to find another career choice, or consider writing just a hobby.

ChaosTitan said:
I think it's only bad advice if it's taken literally. I don't see it as "write one page a day and then quit." He can also be suggesting you ignore the larger 400 page goal and instead focus on one page at a time. Finish that single page, then move on to the next. Smaller goals like this can be less intimidating to new writers who may balk at the idea of a full 400 pages of text.

That could be true as well.

Little Ming · Mar 13, 2012

ChaosTitan said:
I think it's only bad advice if it's taken literally. I don't see it as "write one page a day and then quit." He can also be suggesting you ignore the larger 400 page goal and instead focus on one page at a time. Finish that single page, then move on to the next. Smaller goals like this can be less intimidating to new writers who may balk at the idea of a full 400 pages of text.

That's the way I read it. Not write only one page a day, but focus on just that one page first. If you have 399 pages to go then it can seem overwhelming and discouraging. If you only need to get through one page it is more manageable. Breaking down a bigger project into smaller pieces. One step, one day, one page, one scene at a time.

hlynn117 · Mar 13, 2012

As someone who loved rhetoric, I would also recommend reading Orwell's writing tips. The internet can give them to you, but I will quote 'rule 2', which includes some Orwell-on-Hemingway-on-Faulkner criticism.

2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
Long words don’t make you sound intelligent unless used skillfully. In the wrong situation they’ll have the opposite effect, making you sound pretentious and arrogant. They’re also less likely to be understood and more awkward to read.
When Hemingway was criticized by Faulkner for his limited word choice he replied:

Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.

Tnonk · Mar 13, 2012

I take the advice of 1 to be a page at a time, not a page a day. It's a method I use on my lunch hour. All I want to do on my lunch hour at work is write 1 page.
If & when I finish that page, if I have some time left, all I want to do is write 1 more page.
Quite a few times I've ended up with 3, 4 and occasionally even 5 pages. But I'm happy when I get my 1 page in. It's more than I had.

Adrian

IDGS · Mar 13, 2012

He's not actually encouraging us to write one page and one page only a day, guys. We're writers here, look beyond the words.

I can't remember who it was, but he used to force himself to write at least one sentence a day. I wish I could think of it off the top of my head, because he's extremely successful - but anyways.

He was writing his master's thesis. Partying every night in university / college. Living a full and busy life - but he also wanted to take his writing seriously. Every day, no matter how busy he was, he forced himself to write at least one sentence.

Did he almost ever stop at one sentence? No. But it was a lot less intimidating to get himself to merely get the work on his mind and commit to writing something than promising himself he'd write 15 pages a day - though he likely did, if not more.

Something is always better than nothing - you have to keep the ball rolling somehow.

Al Stevens · Mar 13, 2012

When you think about Steinbeck's page-a-day concept, you must remember what he had to work with. Paper. A pencil or typewriter. I wonder whether he meant that you should strive for a page a day that you would keep. Divide the page count of your best finished work by the number of days it took to write and rewrite and rewrite... A page a day doesn't sound that unreasonable when you do that.

I can do a lot of pages a day. Most of them go in the bit bucket. (Some have said all of them should.

)

allenparker · Mar 14, 2012

The page a day concept, to me, is more like always a page a day, full and complete. I have this policy. I write at least a page a day, no matter how hard, busy, or death defying that task may be. Some days, I write many more than that. There are days when I sit at my desk, wanting to go home, and have to force myself to write one page before I leave.

He was talking about the commitment, not the output.

With Rye · Mar 14, 2012

Mharvey said:
But if - every day - you wake up with that credio of: "Okay, I gotta somehow motivate myself to write 300-400 words today"... you really think you need to find another career choice, or consider writing just a hobby.

I see this point brought up occasionally, that if you're not having the time of your life writing, then you shouldn't be writing. I take exception to this.

It seems like a veiled attack on writers to whom writing doesn't come naturally or easily, writers who have to work hard at it. I'm not saying you don't work hard at it. I'm saying that to those struggling writers who read your comment, and think, damn, I'm having a hard time over here, and there's Mharvey having a blast and saying I should give up--to those people, this attitude is not helpful.

Instead, they should go with what Steinbeck said; don't let the big project intimidate you, write every day, one page, half a page, whatever, just as long as you persist.

Mharvey · Mar 14, 2012

With Rye said:
I see this point brought up occasionally, that if you're not having the time of your life writing, then you shouldn't be writing. I take exception to this.

It seems like a veiled attack on writers to whom writing doesn't come naturally or easily, writers who have to work hard at it. I'm not saying you don't work hard at it. I'm saying that to those struggling writers who read your comment, and think, damn, I'm having a hard time over here, and there's Mharvey having a blast and saying I should give up--to those people, this attitude is not helpful.

Instead, they should go with what Steinbeck said; don't let the big project intimidate you, write every day, one page, half a page, whatever, just as long as you persist.

It's not a veiled attack. I mean, if you struggle to write 300-400 words a day but still want to be a writer, hey, power to you.

I guess my question to you is, if you don't love writing stories or novels, why would you do it? It's certainly not like Investment Banking or something where you can hate the job but even an average investment banker makes a fortune.

Me, I have no choice. I lead the life of a starving artist, trying my best to make the next novel better than the last, to a point where, hopefully, I can write one that someone thinks can make money. Why? Because I can't think of any other way to live my life.

Seems like someone who really struggles to write 300-400 words a day certainly does have a choice. I guess my question is, why would they choose this as a career if they didn't love it?

blacbird · Mar 14, 2012

It's useful for context here to know that John Steinbeck was an extremely careful writer who worked bloody damn hard to achieve the free-flowing prose for which he is so justly famous. There's a journal or somesuch he kept during the writing of The Grapes of Wrath in which he expresses profound discouragement about what he was doing, and indicates clearly the amount of agonizing he did about rewriting and editing, to arrive at the final product, which even at that point he didn't seem very confident about.

Oh, but, wait, there's more: John Steinbeck produced:

Cup of Gold
The Pearl
The Long Valley
Tortilla Flat
Cannery Row
Sweet Thursday
Of Mice and Men
East of Eden
The Grapes of Wrath
In Dubious Battle
The Winter of Our Discontent
Travels with Charley
The Log from the Sea of Cortez

. . . that, off the top of my head, I remember. Oh, and yeah, won a Nobel Prize for Literature.

caw

lolchemist · Mar 14, 2012

IDGS said:
He's not actually encouraging us to write one page and one page only a day, guys. We're writers here, look beyond the words.

LOL! Exactly! Don't worry about what 'one page' meant to Steinbeck, worry about what 'one page' means to you. My personal rule is at least 2000 words per day and I don't care if those words are crap or brilliant. Even if I'm not in the mood and uninspired I force myself to write anyway and by the 300th word I find myself getting into the zone.

We just need to remember how lucky we are that we have computers and software to help us write. The way I write with all my edits and things, it would have been so completely different had I had only pen and paper to work with!

Writing Tips from Steinbeck

Stew21

Nonuw

taking time to smell the flowers

Stew21

LongWave

Jamesaritchie

ChaosTitan

Around

Mharvey

Liker Of Happy Things

Little Ming

hlynn117

Tnonk

IDGS

@LeaveItToIan

Al Stevens

allenparker

Naked Futon Guy

With Rye

Take Care, Take Care, Take Care

Mharvey

Liker Of Happy Things

blacbird

lolchemist

Shooting stars.