The Steinbeck Six

Have you read any Steinbeck lately? Have you read any at all? Grapes of Wrath. Of Mice and Men. Tortilla Flat. Steinbeck's writing is raw and real and not for the faint of heart. Why in the world would I recommend him, then? Because his writing is so vivid and jaw-droppingly beautiful.

And that's why today I'm sharing his top 6 writing tips.

1. Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on.

2. If a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it--bypass it and go on. You can come back to it later and then you may find that the reason it gave you trouble is because it didn't belong there.

3. Beware of a scene that becomes too dear to you, dearer than the rest.

4. Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day. It helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.

5. If you are using dialog, say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.

6. Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn't exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that it sometimes helps to pick out a real person you know, or an imagined one, and write to that one.