Write For Me

Ray Bradbury talks about his writing journey in the video below. I apologize beforehand for the product placement in the video, but near the end of the video he talks about what he decided is the right stuff to write. What the video and then we’ll discuss it.



“I was writing for me and I discovered that was the way to go.” On the surface, that sounds vain, but when we consider what he’s saying it makes a lot of sense. While our ultimate goal in writing is to communicate with the reader, writing that doesn’t draw upon our innermost feelings will come across as hollow. There are a number of stories that I could write just because I’ve read or watched so many of them. Being able to write a story is one thing, but understanding the motives of a story is another. If we aren’t writing about our own emotions, we won’t get them right. We might end up with a villain who is just bad because he’s a villain and a hero who is good because he is a hero. The reader will be much more interested in a story when it is the story that moves us as writers.

Comments

OneBigHappy said…
Thanks for sharing this. I find Bradbury to be one of the few writers who articulates his craft in ways that are sensible and offer real teaching. I'm wondering what the video comes from? Sorry if I missed the reference, but I'd like to see more if there is more.
September 23, 2010 at 12:39 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: WestBow Press

Image
T oday, I’m writing a book review unlike any I have written before. Actually, I’m going to I’m reviewing two books and I haven’t read either one. As you may recall, some time ago, Thomas Nelson announced that they were entering the vanity press market, using the imprint WestBow Press. The first books out of that arrangement are making their way down the pipeline, two of which you can see here. The first thing I noticed when they arrived was the size of the box. I arrived home and saw the box sitting on my front step. My first thought was that they had only shipped on of them. The box is the same sized box Amazon.com uses to ship individual copies of my novels. I opened it up and found both novels stacked neatly, one on top of the other. Both books have the dimensions 6” x 9”, a fairly standard size for non-traditionally published books. Publishing a book with that dimension simplifies the process when a book will be published both as a paperback and a hardback. One of the books is p...
Read more

Review: Raider Publishing

Image
A few weeks ago, I received a request from someone who had come across the popular Review: Westbow Press post. This reader requested that I look at Raider Publishing . After asking this reader a few questions via e-mail, I learned that she had used them to publish a book and was disgruntled with them. One of her complaints was that Adam Salviani was not responding to her e-mail and he was “unavailable” when she called his office in New York. This was brought on by her concern because she had not received an advance copy of her book and found that it had been published without her being informed. In her e-mail, she stated that she had been in contact with other customers and they had received the same treatment. I did what I normally do when I receive a request like this concerning a company I don’t recognize. I looked for as much third-party information as I could find on the web. Interestingly, I did that search before I realized she was disgruntled and I found relatively little to...
Read more

Is Tate Publishing a Scam?

Image
T oday, I want to take one more look at Tate Publishing and Enterprises LLC. In case you missed Tuesday’s post, Tate Publishing is a subsidy press that focuses on unpublished authors. They charge a $3,990 publicist setup fee, but they do appear to have sufficient staff to justify their claim that they have allocated $27,000 for each book. Today, I want to look less at promises and more at results. In the interest of showing rather than telling, take a look at the video below: One of the services that Tate Publishing provides is that they create fifteen second spots like the one above and run them on cable networks. They promise 80,000 impressions. Or to state it another way, they promise that 80,000 people will see that commercial. Someone from Tate Publishing is welcome to correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe they charge an additional fee for these commercials. The way I would expect this to play out is that each commercial will air one time with about 80,000 people watching. T...
Read more