The Best Writing Advice I Ever Got and Other Writing Tips

At some point in the past three years I discovered, or was discovered by, Quora. Quara is a question and answer site in which questions are asked and answered by members of a community. It's like Siri and Google in the sense that people ask questions, but it is like a massive international forum in that humans answer the questions and, like Reddit or other forums, humans upvote or downvote answers, and occasionally comment on them.

People who answer questions will then get asked more questions on that same theme, be it philosophy, religion, The Beatles or raising kids. I get asked a lot of questions about Dylan, blogging and writing. Here is one question that I was asked at the beginning of this year.

What was the most helpful, or most memorable writing advice book you've ever read?

The most memorable advice I ever got came from Sherwood Wirt’s book, You Can Tell The World. There were many useful insights in the book. When he died in 2009 I wrote a tribute to him on my blog titled Sherwood Wirt, R.I.P.

HERE is an excerpt, which I considered the most valuable in my writing career:

If we're to produce great work, we must know what great work looks like. The only way is to be a reader of great works.

“Darwin’s Origin of Species, Marx’ and Engels’ Communist Manifesto, Kierkegaard’s attacks on Hegel, Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra, Sinclair Lewis’ Main Street, Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, Kafka’s The Trial, Camus’ The Plague and others.

“These books, the most influential of our time, deal primarily with the scientific challenge and loss of meaning in a mechanistic society. There has been no Christian work written since the novels of Dostoevsky that can honestly be said to match them in boldness, in documentation, in breadth and scope, in vision, in appeal to the human spirit, or in grasp of truth. C.S. Lewis is the only Christian entry in the field. The opportunities are wide open, and there is plenty of room at the top.”

EdNote: I have read dozens of books about writing over the past half century and there are useful pearls in most of them. So, my advice to you then is to gather them and save them so you can review them and share them.

* * * *

Since retiring in December, I have begun to find a renewed interest in writing fiction. I don't know how far I will run with it, but the pump has been primed, there's water flowing and I'm feeling nourished, refreshed, invigorated.

When I built my first website in the mid-90's one of my aims was to share my short stories. Three stories were translated into foreign languages, and one translated to film. The downside of all that is that when later I sought to publish these stories in literary magazines, I learned that "no previously published stories" included being published online. Alas.

If you're a writer of fiction, one of the best teachers of writing (in my opinion) is the late John Gardner. I strongly recommend The Art of Fiction and On Becoming a Novelist. Here are a few quotes from these two books, followed by a couple final words of advice for writers.

On Writing Fiction: Insights from John Gardner

"Papa"

"Though the literary dabbler may write a fine story now and then, the true writer is one for whom technique has become, as for the pianist, second nature."
The Art of Fiction


"... whatever the genre may be, fiction does its work by creating a dream in the reader's mind."
The Art of Fiction


"Thus the value of great fiction, we begin to suspect, is not just that it entertains us or distracts us from our troubles, not just that it broadens our knowledge of people and places, but also that it helps us to know what we believe, reinforces those qualities that are noblest in us, leads us to feel uneasy about our faults and limitations."
The Art of Fiction


"What the young writer needs to develop, to achieve his goal of becoming a great artist, is not a set of aesthetic laws, but artistic mastery."
The Art of Fiction


"It may feel more classy to imitate James Joyce... than All In the Family; but every literary imitation lacks something we expect of good writing: the writer seeing with his own eyes."
On Becoming a Novelist

"Detail is the lifeblood of fiction."
On Becoming a Novelist


"The study of writing, like the study of classical piano, is not practical but aristocratic. If one is born rich, one can easily afford to be an artist; if not, one has to afford one's art by sacrifice."
On Becoming a Novelist


* * * *

"The main purpose of art... is this, that it tell the truth about the soul, revealing and giving expression to all the secrets one cannot say in simple words. ...Art is a microscope that the artist focuses on the secrets of his own soul, and that then reveals to men the secrets common to them all."
Tolstoy - diary note


"The real rewards of writing are serious and bitter as well as sweet. And they are private, not public."
William Sloan, The Craft of Writing

"One great inhibition and obstacle to me was the thought: Will it make money? But you find if you are thinking of that all the time, either you don't make money because the work is so empty, dry, calculated and without life in it. Or you do make money and you are ashamed of your work. Your published writing gives you the pip."
Brenda Uelland - If You Want to Write

* * * *

If you feel called to be a writer.... "Don't give up the fight."

Sherwood Wirt, R.I.P.

“If you have been ordained to write, woe to you if you put everything else first.” ~ Sherwood Wirt

I was reading the Passages section of Christianity Today last night and came across the following notation:

Died >> Sherwood Eliot Wirt, Christian journalist and author, on November 8 in Seattle. ‘Woody Wirt’ was a longtime associate of Billy Graham and founding editor of Decision magazine.

He was also an author of 28 books, including one that in 1983 pretty much changed my life. That book was You Can Tell the World, subtitled New Directions for Christian Writers.

Wirt had been, among other things, a journalist. One great feature of being a journalist is getting the opportunity to throw a lot of questions at some fairly significant people. Wirt, for example, had encounters with heavies such as H. G. Wells and Albert Einstein. He also did C. S. Lewis’ last interview.

In the interview with Lewis he asked, "Will you tell young writers something about style?" Lewis said, "Style? Say exactly what you mean, and when you have said it, be sure you have said exactly that. That is style."

Wirt’s style was direct. His hefty serving of advice for young writers, with no mincing, had me hooked from the first punch. My frame of mind was such that Wirt's advice had the authority of the word of God. This was not just another book for me. At that time I truly felt writing to be a calling. I had "failed" as a missionary and my interpersonal skills and circumstances did not suit me for pastoral work. During a weeklong vacation at a private cabin in Portage, Wisconsin, I had an epiphanal moment in which, for me, writing became a calling.

My first published article six years earlier resulted in letters from three continents thanking me for what I had written. Only five hundred words, but these letters claimed their lives were changed. I experienced first hand the power of the written word.

I was only too aware of my limitations and lack of experience. Thus, when I picked up Wirt's book, I knew he was dead on. His message resonated because he passionately believed that what he was saying needed to be said. If we're to produce great work, we must know what great work looks like. The only way is to be a reader of great works.

“Darwin’s Origin of Species, Marx’ and Engels’ Communist Manifesto, Kierkegaard’s attacks on Hegel, Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra, Sinclair Lewis’ Main Street, Hitler’s Mein Kampf, Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, Kafka’s The Trial, Camus’ The Plague and others.

“These books, the most influential of our time, deal primarily with the scientific challenge and loss of meaning in a mechanistic society. There has been no Christian work written since the novels of Dostoevsky that can honestly be said to match them in boldness, in documentation, in breadth and scope, in vision, in appeal to the human spirit, or in grasp of truth. C.S. Lewis is the only Christian entry in the field. The opportunities are wide open, and there is plenty of room at the top.”

A little further along, Wirt again urged serious young writers to read the classics. “The author of the 70’s who will really influence his day will be a person who knows the English language and the writers who have mastered it. Journalism courses are no substitute for a grasp of Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, John Milton, John Bunyan, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Johnson, Robert Browning, or even Ernest Hemingway. To live in the twentieth century and to understand it, one must also know Soren Kierkegaard, Karl Marx, and Fyodor Dostoevsky. There is no easy way to master such men; if we haven’t read them, sooner or later our bluff will be called. And may I add that there is very little God can do with a lazy Christian writer.”

I'd been given my marching orders. With this admonition I was pushed into the literature, listening to classics while painting apartments, while commuting, whenever I was not able to sit at a typewriter and pour myself out. I considered myself a serious young writer, and took these admonitions to heart. For better or for worse, though I may not have significantly changed the world, the skills I developed help me provide for my family. And the rest of my story is as yet unwritten...

One takeaway from Wirt's book bears repeating: If you want to change the world, and I earnestly desired it, you begin by changing yourself.

As for Mr. Wirt, thank you for helping light my torch that I might in some small way give light to another generation of young writers seeking to hold back tomorrow's darkness with courage and truth.