7 great American writers on writing
Ernest Hemingway once said “All American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.” As much as we love our Ernest, we beg to differ. It’s not just the amazing books Americans have written, which cause us to contradict Papa’s viewpoint. It’s the words of wisdom these masters have shared about their craft.
John Steinbeck
Ernest Hemingway
Elmore Leonard
Toni Morrison
Stephen King
Henry Miller
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Created by the awesomely talented Chris Ritter
Via http://inktank.fi
11 responses to “7 great American writers on writing”
I would love to hear from you
AWARDS
Just English 
An awesome array of amazing talent.
Can I just add on more? Not because of the body of work he produced but because of one book only – possibly my favourite, well maybe. . .
Joseph Heller – Catch 22.
Of course you can and you most certainly may! Thank you!
Only Stephen King confuses me, for I’m not gonna “kill my darlings” 🙂 🙂 But he’s the man with profound success in writing, who cares about my opinion… 🙂
Well, thank you for your comment, Kate! 🙂
🙂 It is a metaphor in a sense. The “darlings”are the sentences, paragraphs, pages or whole chapters that you elaborated so much on and you thought they were some kind of masterpiece but which happen not to fit in the whole idea of your work 🙂
Some more info:
“Killing the Darlings the Writer Loves
These are the darlings the experts teach us to kill – the parts of our book we love so much but do nothing for the story. Whether it’s a paragraph with exceptionally beautiful writing – our best ever! – or a lovely scene depicted brilliantly, we love these babies so much, we can’t bear the thought of hitting the delete button. But if they do nothing for the story, we must bring ourselves to kill them. If that’s a little too drastic for you faint-of-heart, you can just cut it and paste it into a standby document. Then you know it’s there, in safe keeping, to visit whenever you wish. Just don’t put it back!”
http://a-musedwriter.blogspot.com/2011/09/what-does-kill-your-darlings-mean.html
Thank you for this explanation, now I understand the meaning…and he’s (King) absolutely right.
I am honored to nominate you for an Award(s) of your choice. Please visit me at http://sharechair.wordpress.com/2012/08/25/a-brief-intermission-for-a-lot-of-very-late-blog-love-2/ to learn about the choices. Awards are a lovely way to connect with other bloggers, but there is no pressure, and it is completely understood if you choose not to participate. Congratulations!
I’ve read the King quote about “kill your darlings” before and I’m afraid I just don’t get it. Am I daft?
Absolutely not. You just have to look it up from a different, figurative angle 🙂
Reblogged this on MeliSwenk: Manuscript Perfectionist and commented:
I’m off, killing my darlings! 😀
I enjoyed reading these quotes from great (or should I say awesome!) authors! Thank you for posting them…and I look forward to reading more posts! If you have the time, I would love for you to take a look at the excerpt I wrote from my book http://nchovanec.wordpress.com/2012/08/26/a-short-excerpt/
I would love to hear your opinions on it!!
Thank you! I will definately read and reread your work and get back to you 🙂 All the best and much, much success, Zoe.