Hemmingway's rules for writing

[MattScho]

As a fellow former writer for The Kansas City Star, I have had several copies of the style book to which in Hemmingway's day was a style sheet. Same first page, though, the rules he claims set him up to be a writer are still the focus of the thing (the rest is style questions, does this verb go with this noun, that sort of thing).

 

[James Charles]

As a fellow former writer for The Kansas City Star, I have had several copies of the style book to which in Hemmingway's day was a style sheet. Same first page, though, the rules he claims set him up to be a writer are still the focus of the thing (the rest is style questions, does this verb go with this noun, that sort of thing).View attachment 14895

I have most of Hemingway's books and have read all. I think he has most influenced my writing, in that "less is more. Less is more." Then, agents and editors say, "more emotion. More of this. More of that. You're too rushed. Paint a picture." Then some say, "all that slows down the action." URGH. And, one thing with Hemingway is, "and, and, and, and." Today's agents and editors break up your sentences and have you take out all the "ands."

 

[CarolMS]

The rules are one thing. Genre conventions another. And good writers show their character and personalities in their writing style. When the voices of both narrator and character is strong and true, people subconsciously connect with both. I could never write like Hemingway, but I understand his appeal to so many. A powerful writer and a powerful personality. And such a life! When I first started writing my novel I collected a lot of quotes from writers and made them into images to post online. I chose this one to remind me to get prepared for the revisions to come, though little did I know how many there might be.

 

[CarolMS]

Oh, my, can I ever relate to this! --

I just read that Oscar Wilde, when asked how his day's work had gone, spoke of spending the morning taking out a comma and the afternoon putting it back in.

“I have just spent a good week,” he wrote to a friend midway through Madame Bovary, which took seven years to compose. “Alone like a hermit and calm as a god, I abandoned myself to a frenzy of literature. I got up at midday, I went to bed at four in the morning; I have written eight pages.”

(Apparently the comma quote is sometime attributed to Flaubert, who was a notoriously slow writer, but either way....Wilde or Flaubert.)

 

[E G Logan]

how his day's work had gone, spoke of spending the morning taking out a comma and the afternoon putting it back in.

I suspect both Wilde and Flaubert had private incomes and hence no pressing need to deliver their work..!