Writing Advice: Five Messages From Five Authors You Should Hear

 

Writing Advice: Five Writers Who Influenced Me & The Author Messages They Shared

 

Writing Advice: Five Inspirational Author Messages

As writers, we all have an author who we feel has writing advice or are inspiring in their own way. We pick up their books, watch their plays, read their poems or look at their paintings and are questioned in ways we never thought possible before.
At times, we may have thought we had ‘the answer’ or the greatest idea for a story that we have ever had. We may have finally thought we’d cracked it, only to find that we actually missed the mark and were back to square one once again.
We artists, all need to learn to grow and learn from one another and it is my belief that we can learn something every day. It may be a cliché, but I honestly believe it is true, especially when it comes to the work of other artists, writers, poets, etc.
Here are some of my favourite writers below and my thoughts on what makes them, and the clips so interesting. The writing advice these authors pass on really made me think. I hope they make you think too.

Chuck Palahniuk

Chuck was the first author, other than Road Dahl, who I felt really captured my imagination. I studied him at university in a contemporary fiction module and was blown away by Fight Club among other works, like Invisible Monster and Survivor.

During my time as a young writer, I was doing a Masters Degree and the creative writing workshops I attended were somewhat mixed in their use and their feel. Sometimes, the atmosphere was jovial and fun. Other times, I felt there were knives continually being sharpened under tables to be sunk into the stories, hopes and dreams of peers.

In the video below, I have attached what I felt the positives of such creative writing workshops were. As Chuck Palahniuk says, they can be a sanctuary for writers and the still fledgling ideas and crafts that are aired within.

To me, the equivalent that I see on a daily basis, through Twitter, Instagram and other social media outlets, is the accessibility of the Writing Community and Writers/Authors of Instagram that I, and so many others, follow. Some of the fellow writers I have met online are amazing and provide myself, and others, with so much encouragement and kind words about blogs I have written or my novel, Inside Iris. I love being able to share my writing advice online but, at times, we do have people sharpening knives too.

These ‘knives’ appeared to come out when people discussed whether you were an indie author / self-published author / kindle author or a traditionally published writer. Either way, we all have a story to tell and we all have something we can learn from one another, whether traditionally published or an independent writer. We all have the same passion and I, as well as many others out there, am busting to learn as much as I can from others. Are you?

I have written a similar creative writing blog on this before, called ‘The Pied Pipers of Instagram’. Check it out and let me know your thoughts on this aspect of the Writing Community and social media.

What are your thoughts on writers’ workshops? Do you run/attend one? have you had a positive or negative experience? Pop your thoughts in the comments section below to share any author messages you learned in your own groups.

Douglas Coupland

When I fell for Chuck Palahniuk’s writing, I was next swayed by Douglas Coupland’s Generation X among other titles, like Eleanor Rigby and the powerful Hey, Nostradamus. I remember reading the latter of the titles and was unable to have it prised from my hands until I was finished. Doug’s messages as an author was incredibly powerful.

For some time after, I remember being affected by the story of this book and how it was so powerful and emotional. I can still visualise the descriptions in the cafeteria to this day, and such powerful description and sensitive subject matter has caused me to return to reading the book multiple times. Wow! Just wow!

In the video I have attached, I love the idea that Doug toys with about the ‘extreme present’ and how we as a society may be falling victim to the constant bombardment of data and tech. Are we driving blindly towards a cliff where we are, as a species, desensitised and constantly yearning for the ‘next thing’? Are we always looking for the next hit and missing what it is in the present that we ought to be taking pleasure and joy from?

This thinking from Douglas Coupland, and other similar writers, has always got me thinking about the state of society and the world we live in. In turn, this thinking and these ideas helped me when shaping the metropolis in Inside Iris, Hexingham. I wanted Hexingham to be seen as a dystopia that was born out of the dream society that the population thought they wanted.

What are your thoughts on how we appear to be sliding towards ‘the extreme present’? Do you feel society is slowly moving towards a precipice? I’m interested to hear your thoughts on author messages such as Doug’s. Pop them in the comments box attached.

Cormac McCarthy

As an independently published author from a country like Northern Ireland with a population of around 1.5 million people, it is hard to make millions publishing a novel from a bedroom office in Bangor, County Down.

To be fair, when I published Inside Iris, I knew I would be working my day job as a primary school teacher for my main income and the book was something that I wanted to do to achieve a dream. I also take creative writing workshops with children and young people in local schools and have a blast doing so.

When I consider the work of Cormac McCarthy, I think of a man who has helped me to delve deep into character development, depth and detail, like I have never done before. From his Border Trilogy works, Blood Meridian, No Country For Old Men and, of course, The Road, I have continually been blown away by the way in which he portrays characters and writes realistic, effective dialogue – especially the male character.

I love Cormac’s work and I will always be blown away by the world that he paints in The Road and the bleakness that is palpable within it. I have always looked at The Road as a book that makes me think a lot about what I have and how it is the things that many of us take for granted that actually matter in life. Also, the beautiful way in which McCarthy depicts the relationship between father and son is something that I, as the father of two young children, is masterfully done and it always makes me hug my kids that little bit tighter after reading The Road.

In the video I have attached, Cormac McCarthy talks about the life he lived in his younger days as a writer and how the sparseness that he experienced helped him focus on what he really needed to survive. He talks about how, when things were at their most bleak, something amazing would happen.

As authors and writers, we always have a monkey on our backs who continually berates us and makes us doubt ourselves and the abilities we possess. At times, many of us within the Writing Community online wonder whether there is a point in continuing after getting yet another rejection letter or receiving a knock back. Sometimes, as with Cormac McCarthy, it’s about looking for that tube of toothpaste to make things turn around.

What do you think about the writing advice in this video? Do you feel the same about some of the bad times in your life as a writer? What ‘tubes of toothpaste’ have you found that have given you that little bit of strength to push on? Pop your thoughts in the comments box below and share them with the writing community. Share your own author messages with others to start a discussion.

Coen Brothers

During my Masters Degree, I focused a lot on script writing and drama. I loved the physical acting out of roles and also the crafting of realistic, earthy dialogue between a series of characters within a play or script.

When it comes to writer/directors, there are few as talented as the Coen brothers. From their works The Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou and, of course, No Country For Old Men (the Cormac McCarthy link is clear here), I have always loved the worlds, the dialogue and characters these men have crafted in their movies.

In the video I have included, the topic that is discussed is the importance of the minor characters within Coen brother works. This is not only important in screenwriting, but also in the crafting of stories in general.

We can learn lots from how Coen brothers place such an emphasis on what seem like incidental characters who always appear to stick in our minds, even they may only have mere minutes of screen time in relation to the major characters. These characters are so well shaped and cast by the Coens that we end up thinking about them after the ending credits have finished scrolling. For me, it is Jesus in The Big Lebowski in the bowling alley.

The carefully crafted use of minor characters in a script or novel can also give the fabric of the world we are investing so much time and effort in more texture and realism. It fills it out and adds extra dimensions to lift the main characters, and the story as a whole, to higher levels than they would be on their own.

It is the interaction between all of the characters and what they impart onto our protagonists, and the lives they live, that can add to the depth and holistic world of the entire story we craft. The Coen brothers are masters at this.

What are your thoughts on this? What do you feel about the importance of ‘minor’ characters? Do you use them? How much time do you spend on their development? I’d love to read your thoughts. Give me an idea in the comments box attached with any author messages you feel you read.

Brad Meltzer

Considering I have been a teacher for over ten years, and I have had first-hand experience of trying to get young people to believe in themselves, this next clip resonated a lot with me as someone who loves working with children, teenagers and young adults.

Brad Meltzer, a thriller writer from America, is someone who I’ve had little experience with when it comes to his writing but, after watching his TEDtalk I am very interested in reading some of his work. If you have any recommendations for his best work that I must buy, please add it to the comments box below.

Brad talks of the three things he says to his children every day – dream big, work hard and stay humble. He then goes into some of the inspirational stories of people in history who he feels are great examples of each of these points – all of whom are young people in one way or another.

When I was watching Brad talk, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the Douglas Coupland video that talks about the desensitized society that we all appear to be seeing more and more often. The three points Brad makes, dream big, work hard and stay humble, are the qualities that we as parents, educators and people who care deeply about the lives and paths that children, teenagers and young adults take in their lives, want to impart into each of them as they grow up.

I love watching TEDtalks like this and find them incredibly inspiring. I love seeing people who take the time to talk so passionately about the youth of the country in which they inhabit. When I think of some of the issues facing young people in the UK and Ireland, I would love to get each of them to think of the three points that Brad makes and get them to choose a different, more affective path in life.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this and the TEDtalk attached and the author messages included in the writing blog. Do you have someone in your youth who inspired you? Did you choose a different path thanks to the belief that another person had in you? Give them a shout out in the comments box below and share it with us!

 

Writing Advice: Why Those Author Messages?

As I said at the start, as writers, we all have other artists and authors who we feel have a message or can offer writing advice in their own way.

We artists would all love to touch people out there in the real world with our writing and the characters or worlds we create. The stories that we write, as we forge our own path through the creative outlet we have chosen to pursue, is the story that we will leave behind.

We can only hope that we are determined, resilient and write the best story we can in the time that we are given. Maybe you can be an author with messages of your own to impart onto others in time.