Question for #writers #authors and #bloggers: What is the one piece of writing, a book, an article, a short story, viral tweet, what have you, that influenced you the most in your writing career or a hobby?
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Sax Brightwell 🌸replied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by
@stefan "The road to hell is paved with adverbs." -Stephen King
There are still plenty of adverbs in my finished works, but they are about 20% of the amount in the first draft. Replace with a better verb, pick the best one or two adverbs only, expand and dig into the description if it's so important, remember starkness can have power too. Pruning adverbs is probably the most effective editing technique I know.
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Stefan Bohacekreplied to Sax Brightwell 🌸 last edited by
@saxbrightwell Good advice, thank you!
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Petra van Cronenburgreplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by
@stefan As a professional author and journalist: This "one piece" doesn't exist for me, it's a collection, changing with situations, age, and experience. Even more important were real people who motivated me, who contradicted me, who teased something out or gave fantastic criticism. Constructive critics like editors/agents/publishers are worth their weight in gold.
Tweets *never* influenced me.
One of my childhood's role models is Dr Jane Goodall: https://www.cronenburg.net/goodall/
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Stefan Bohacekreplied to Petra van Cronenburg last edited by
@NatureMC This is all great advice, thank you for sharing it!
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@stefan Douglas Hofstadter: "A Person Paper on Purity in Language" http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html
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@rrmutt Thank you so much for sharing!
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Mystery Babylonreplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by
@stefan "Page After Page" by Heather Sellers.
Lots of books talk about the skills/techniques or lifestyle of writing. This one spoke to me about having a passion for writing and reading, right when I needed to hear that in my life. It's not a big book, but it's totally from her heart.
It inspired me to change majors to Creative Writing, so essentially changed the direction of my life for the better.
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Stefan Bohacekreplied to Mystery Babylon last edited by
@erosdiscordia Thank you, this is very helpful!
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Fantasy World Terrelliumreplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by
@stefan I cant decide on one, loads of books have helped over the years and the youtube videos
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Stefan Bohacekreplied to Fantasy World Terrellium last edited by
@AndeeHarry Fair enough!
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Fantasy World Terrelliumreplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by
@stefan yeah, happy writing
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Stefan Bohacekreplied to Fantasy World Terrellium last edited by
@AndeeHarry Thank you!
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Elena Rossini ⁂replied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by
@stefan Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks is a masterclass in storytelling, with many memorable anecdotes
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Stefan Bohacekreplied to Elena Rossini ⁂ last edited by
@_elena Thank you, I'll check this out!
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CassandraVertreplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by
@stefan
The Chaser by John Collier (short story)
I read it when I was 13, and it expanded my understanding of stories. -
Stefan Bohacekreplied to CassandraVert last edited by
@CassandraVert Thank you!
