Tempokai
The Overworked One
- Joined
- Nov 16, 2021
- Messages
- 1,392
- Points
- 153
How do you write?
The question is not so strange as it may seem. The writer who has the most immediate concern with words is in a position to know his own powers and defects more clearly than any other man. He can read what he himself writes, and when it suits him, he knows how others will see his work. The artist's eye for detail—his power of seeing things as they are rather than as he would like them to be—is necessarily one that is very keen; and this comes from the same source whence we all acquire our literary tastes. We read those authors whose works we admire because we feel we understand their intentions better by reading them than if we did not. And it is the habit of writers to try to explain why they write as they do: it is only fair to tell readers how and why they have written as they have done. Thus the writer who asks how he should write is merely trying to help himself, and no one else, to get better at what he does. If he doesn't want criticism, let him say so; but since he must know what he ought to do, let him take counsel from people who know something about writing. It is only natural that men who are interested in literature should desire to learn new things about it; and there are few subjects which offer a wider field for such learning than the art of writing itself. But I ask again: How do you write?
The question is not so strange as it may seem. The writer who has the most immediate concern with words is in a position to know his own powers and defects more clearly than any other man. He can read what he himself writes, and when it suits him, he knows how others will see his work. The artist's eye for detail—his power of seeing things as they are rather than as he would like them to be—is necessarily one that is very keen; and this comes from the same source whence we all acquire our literary tastes. We read those authors whose works we admire because we feel we understand their intentions better by reading them than if we did not. And it is the habit of writers to try to explain why they write as they do: it is only fair to tell readers how and why they have written as they have done. Thus the writer who asks how he should write is merely trying to help himself, and no one else, to get better at what he does. If he doesn't want criticism, let him say so; but since he must know what he ought to do, let him take counsel from people who know something about writing. It is only natural that men who are interested in literature should desire to learn new things about it; and there are few subjects which offer a wider field for such learning than the art of writing itself. But I ask again: How do you write?
