Barbara Adde’s Reviews > Pity the Reader: On Writing With Style > Status Update

“Here’s what I think the truth is: we are all addicted to of fossil fuels in a state of denial. And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we’re hooked on.” From “Man Without” ch 4

Every sentence must do 1 of 2 things - reveal character or advance the action (short stories)

Then, attend to the finer points of line editing:
Revise for clarity.
Revise for words that are more accurate, concrete and alive.
Revise sentences so their sound and structure yield the most bang for the buck you intend.
Proofread for glitches of punctuation, typos, misspellings, and so on.

“Le mot juste is the one that hits the nail on the head with sense/sound/cadence all together.”

“Interaction between a given personality and a situation of conflict that arises, provoking choice and action — consequently revealing, changing, or deepening a character — is what storytelling is all about.”

“True action combines realization - when a character is ‘impressed’ - and acting on it in a way that makes a difference to the character’s life or others.”

“The proper ending for any story about people it seems to me, since life is now a polymer in which the Earth is wrapped so tightly, should be that same abbreviation, which I now write large because I feel like it, which is this one:
ETC.
And it is in order to acknowledge the continuity of this polymer that I begin so many sentences with ‘And’ and ‘So’ and end so many paragraphs with “… and so on.”

Vonnegut’s ‘Creative Writing 101’ Rule #3:
Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

“It’s not your story that matters. It’s how you tell it.”

“Any artist of any kind has to be able to stomach falling short of the mark, continually, in kinds of ways….

As the poet William Stafford often said to students: You’ve got to lower your standards! You can’t compare yourself either the most renowned writers in the history of literature, for example.”

“I keep suspecting I’m out of business and better become a rock star or buy a greenhouse or something. Right now I don’t feel particularly in business, but I m ow how to get in business - It’s a little like an Ouija board. I will try to get a clue to what my intelligence wants to talk about, and then I will try to talk about it more and more.”

“As a writer, I share a problem…with most human beings: a tendency to lose contact with my own intelligence. It’s almost as if there were a layer of fat upon the part of us that thinks and it’s the writer’s job to hack through and discover what is inside.”