10 Elementary Tips For Writers From Sherlock Holmes SourceSince Sherlock Holmes first appeared in 1887, the four novels and 56 stories featuring him have never been out of print. He has become the most-played movie character in history, with 200 actors having played the role. Other writers have created memorable characters who solve mysteries with reason. To celebrate the anniversary of Arthur Conan Doyle's birthday, I thought I would put together 10 things writers can learn from the world's most famous detective.
How to Make Yourself Work When You Just Don’t Want To There’s that project you’ve left on the backburner – the one with the deadline that’s growing uncomfortably near. And there’s the client whose phone call you really should return – the one that does nothing but complain and eat up your valuable time. Wait, weren’t you going to try to go to the gym more often this year? Can you imagine how much less guilt, stress, and frustration you would feel if you could somehow just make yourself do the things you don’t want to do when you are actually supposed to do them? The good news (and its very good news) is that you can get better about not putting things off, if you use the right strategy. Reason #1 You are putting something off because you are afraid you will screw it up. Solution: Adopt a “prevention focus.” There are two ways to look at any task. What you need is a way of looking at what you need to do that isn’t undermined by doubt – ideally, one that thrives on it. Solution: Make like Spock and ignore your feelings.
4 Writing Tips to Help the Writing Process My student cried when I showed her how to voice type in Google. Then, instead of 90 words in one class period, she typed 500. She edited it. Teachers are busy. I require students to use Spellcheck and Grammar tools before turning in work. 4 Writing Tips for Students Tutorial Video My 4 Favorite Student Writing Tips that Make Writing Easier Writing Tip #1: Use Grammarly www.grammarly.com Grammarly is awesome. How to Get the Basic Version of Grammarly Free (Read this First) Go to Grammarly using the Chrome web browser.Firefox and Internet Explorer take you in an endless loop. Now, Grammarly will check basic grammar. The Grammarly status bar. When grading student work, I paste all papers into Grammarly and turn on the plagiarism checker. When you check your writing, it generates citations for works you quote. Grammar Coaching Tip. Writing Tip #2: Use the Hemingway App In the screenshot, you can see Hemingway’s five basic suggestions with color coding: Hemingway Tip.
Neil Gaiman’s 8 Rules of Writing By Maria Popova In the winter of 2010, inspired by Elmore Leonard’s 10 rules of writing published in The New York Times nearly a decade earlier, The Guardian reached out to some of today’s most celebrated authors and asked them to each offer his or her commandments. After Zadie Smith’s 10 rules of writing, here come 8 from the one and only Neil Gaiman: WritePut one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.Put it aside. For more timeless wisdom on writing, see Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 rules for a great story, David Ogilvy’s 10 no-bullshit tips, Henry Miller’s 11 commandments, Jack Kerouac’s 30 beliefs and techniques, John Steinbeck’s 6 pointers, and Susan Sontag’s synthesized learnings. Image by Kimberly Butler
Science Shows Something Surprising About People Who Love to Write DAVOS, Switzerland — In an exclusive interview on Friday, British Prime Minister David Cameron told Mic that defeating is "the battle of our generation." "For many in your audience, I think this is something people really need to understand, the scale of the threat that we face," Cameron said. "It's the battle of our time." In a wide-ranging foreign policy conversation with Mic at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, Cameron sketched out his vision on a series of issues, including the fight against global terrorism, the war in Syria and the refugee crisis. Cameron said that he and President Barack Obama are working "very closely together" and are "one and the same" in their approach to defeating the Islamic State, also known as ISIL, ISIS or Daesh. "They are making a fundamental mistake of trying to blame all of Islam and all Muslims for what is the ideology and the actions of a minority." Read the transcript of our conversation below, condensed and for clarity:
John Berger: ‘Writing is an off-shoot of something deeper’ I have been writing for about 80 years. First letters then poems and speeches, later stories and articles and books, now notes. The activity of writing has been a vital one for me; it helps me to make sense and continue. Writing, however, is an off-shoot of something deeper and more general – our relationship with language as such. Let’s begin by examining the activity of translating from one language to another. The conventional view of what this involves proposes that the translator or translators study the words on one page in one language and then render them into another language on another page. Why? This practice reminds us that a language cannot be reduced to a dictionary or stock of words and phrases. Consider the term “mother tongue”. And within one mother tongue are all mother tongues. Words, terms, phrases can be separated from the creature of their language and used as mere labels. So I modify the lines, change a word or two, and submit them again.
50 Essential Mystery Novels That Everyone Should Read In these weeks of midwinter, there’s nothing more satisfying than curling up by the fire with a good novel — and in particular a good mystery novel, because they somehow seem to keep you the warmest. Plus, what with a new season of Sherlock starting this week, your appetite for more murders, clues, and suspicious persons might just be piqued. After the jump, check out 50 essential mystery novels (and spy novels, and crime novels — the genre tends to get a little blurry) that will bring color to your cheeks and set your brain ticking. Hound of the Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle Really, you should read this as all the Sherlock Holmes stories, but choices have to be made.
Top 15 Great Alcoholic Writers - Listverse Books Many great writers of the 20th century (especially American writers) struggled with addictions to alcohol. Some believe that this may have contributed to their great artistic abilities, while others believe that the alcohol served as a medication for other problems in their lives. 15. Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author, famous for his novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. 14. Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an author of crime stories and novels of immense stylistic influence upon modern crime fiction, especially in the style of the writing and the attitudes now characteristic of the genre. 13. John Cheever (May 27, 1912–June 18, 1982) was an American novelist and short story writer, sometimes called “the Chekhov of the suburbs” or “the Ovid of Ossining.” 12. O. 11. 10. Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. Listverse Staff
The writing life: Why do novelists write novels about novelists? Ruling over a global empire brings with it many benefits, the chief perk being unlimited access to illicit sex. When Britannia dominated the waves, the English were famous for being prudes at home and lechers abroad. Men who were models of self-control in the mother country kept harems in the hinterland. Yet if lust was a motive for seeking domination, it could also be a solvent of oppression. Damon Galgut’s Arctic Summer, a lightly fictionalized biography of E.M. Yet behind Forster’s trim mustache and languid manners, there hid yearnings that he could never publicly acknowledge (his one novel about same-sex love, Maurice, was published in 1971, a year after he died). By Galgut’s account, Forster’s sexual awakening paralleled his flowering as a novelist, his erotic adventures opening up for him a wider social expanse that allowed him to write his masterpiece, A Passage to India (1924). A novel about novel-writing might seem too meta or parasitic to be tolerable.