I find it so intresting that in King's life he had many English classes and such but his real lesson he says came when he was working under John Gould for a newspaper his teachers technically forced him to be the sports reporter for. He brought John his first to peices- the first he changed two or three things and printed. The second; he took a black marker to and start going though things. King was serprised- because all of his teachers before that had never changed much in his papers, and yet here was John, changing all of the 'un-needed detail' and making it better. He says John gave him some of the best advice he's ever been given, and that's these words:
"When you write a story, you're telling yourself the story, when you rewrite, your main job is taking out all that are NOT the story." he later went to say that you "write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. Your stuff starts out being just for you, but then it goes out. Once you know what the story is and get it right--as right as you can, anyway--it belongs to anyone who wants to read it. Or criticize it."
It's something to think about, I think and I have diffenetly taken it to heart.
Hellooooooooo????? Anybody there? Am I there? Testing 1,2,3. If I figure out I'm finally in the "in" crowd I'll write more.
ReplyDeleteBoo-hiss! I posted a real comment to Kira's blog & for some reason it's not here. Hmmmm. Musta done something wrong. Arghh! I'll keep trying.
ReplyDeleteO.K. I AM SHOUTING NOW AND T-Y-P-I-N-G V-E-R-Y S-L-O-W-L-Y. This is the 3rd time I have tried to respond to Kira's blog & stuff keeps happening--it ends up in the blogsophere netherworld I guess. Arghhh. Once again . . .
ReplyDeleteI like what John Gould said/did--take out what's NOT story & marking up King's work. I'm in this class 'cause I want my work marked up. I worry that I will waller my writing to death trying to improve it, not knowing when to stop--when it's "right."
One more time I'll try to post this.
So posted! So noted. Well done, Betty. We look forward to you posting your thoughts about the book about writing you are reading now.
ReplyDeleteKira, I think it is a good point. It is like Ms. G tells us that our class loves a back story and sometimes like in the drama stuff we're doing now, we don't need the back story. So it is probably beneficial to read back through what we write and take out unneccessary notes. It is also good to see that King learned that when writing newspaper articles, and he probably uses this method when writing fiction, and we can use it when writing drama scenes. It is good to see things apply. I think it is a good point.
ReplyDeleteI also think it is good as a writer to have things correced like that because if not you don't have anywhere to grow.
It's awfully hard, though, don't you think? Kim suggested I take out about three of the five pages of one of my pieces and I did: and she was right. Didn't make it fun, or less painful, but ultimately rewarding when you realize it really is better.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure you ever get used to it - spending four or five hours writing industriously, convinced it is great, only to find, when you finally stop and read what you have written, that it's really not very good at all. If I've learned anything at all from that painful experience it is to wait a day before you throw it all away, longer if you can. There's probably something - hopefully more than a single sentence - that you can use. And if you're lucky, it might just need re-ordering. At the very least it has served to get your thoughts in order so that when you come to write it again you at least have a better idea what you're trying to say.
That's my hope, anyway...