"Here's the news: I am going to sue the Brown and Williamson Company, manufacturers of Pall Mall cigarettes, for a billion bucks! Starting when I was only twelve years old, I have never chain-smoked anything but unfiltered Pall Malls. And for many years now, right on the package, Brown and Williamson have promised to kill me.
"But I am now eighty-one and a half!!!!
"Thanks a lot, you dirty rats. The last thing I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most powerful people on the whole planet would be named Bush, Dick and Colon."
Kurt Vonnegut
Lesson 1: write what you know
- You must write!
- Use automatic writing to unblock or "create the kernel"
- Whilst writing what you know is a good thing, you cannot assume that just because it happened the reader will believe it happened. The writing needs authenticating detail - specificity
- Learn to observe - observe in words the way a photographer might observe visually
- Use things that stand out
- Use your imagination to augment authentic details
- Look beyond the obvious
- Use documents and diaries for authentic source material
- Look up words you don't know
- Use a notebook to record experiences or observations
Back to writing course
