60 Tweet-sized Writing Pointers from Frank Delaney

A lesser known tidbit about my life – I follow Frank Delaney on Twitter. He’s this brilliant, illuminated Irish author who penned the book “Ireland,” of which I’m gushingly fond.
He tweets a writing tip every day, & is also in the process of putting out podcasts that analyze and go over James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” which is equally thrilling.

Anyway, considering the imminence of NaNoWriMo in a couple weeks, & the population of writers on my Friends list, I’d love to share the abundance with you. Hope it helps!

1. Not all writers are voyeurs. Not all writers are interesting people. But voyeurs can be fascinating – especially at the core of a story.

2. Few events energize a novel as much as a major character going missing. Imagine how gripping the search can be.

3. Always have some character work somewhere against type. For instance, if your heroine is chic and frail, make carpentry her secret dream.

4. Many, if not most, great literary characters suffer from loneliness and/or fear. Make sure your main characters do the same.

5. What is the belief you hold most passionately? Have one of your characters argue against it with equal force. Then report what happens.

6. If you hate what you’ve written in any one day, sit back and sing it – you’ll instantly see its faults, and you may even come to like it.

7. Be careful with hyperbole, onomatopoeia and italics – the fierce expressive forms. Each of them does a lot of work in a little space.

8. Give similar rhythms to the opening and closing paragraphs of your entire piece; it’ll deliver an unconscious sense of completeness.

9. Go out of doors now. Pick up a fallen leaf. Come back in and describe it in a sentence of 12 words. Now do that for somebody’s soul.

10. In life, good people do bad things and bad people (sometimes) do good things. In writing, that makes for great energy and intrigue.

11. How to make your reader feel good: Give a nasty character a fact that is blatantly wrong, and have the book’s best person correct it.

12. Take an emotion – rage, for example. Count the steps you have to climb before you really lose it. Apply that formula to your protagonist.

13. If you use the framework of only one month, especially in a historical novel, you’ll get powerful cohesion and control throughout.

14. On which wrist do you wear a watch – if you wear one? You can make us remember somebody for ever with a detail like that.

15. Every day in the calendar has some event associated with it. Now there’s a great treasure trove of ideas for plots and non-fiction!

16. Do you have a list of favorite “tools – e.g., clock, calendar, telephone. You use them all the time, and so should your characters.

17. What trait do you most like to mock in people? What’s your favorite secret sneer? Air it, because you’ll write it with energy.

18. Dream up the worst taste that you can imagine and then give it to a character you want us to like. Conflict is a writer’s cornerstone.

19. Ever tried the reinforced reference? Say something, then repeat it obliquely or expand it some paragraphs later. Joyce was brilliant at it.

20. There’s something you always do that irritates you; get rid of it by giving it to one of your characters.

21. What’s the most personal habit you have, that secret, solitary thing you do of which you speak to nobody? Give it to your protagonist.

22. Here’s a task that’ll stop you dead: Describe a kiss. Describe it so that we can FEEL it. If you can do that – you’re already some writer.

23. If you’re going to write about sex – no euphemisms. Use the words in your head. I mean, do you really think “manhood” or “anemone”? Yecch!

24. What’s the very worst thing that could happen to your life? Well, then – go ahead; do it to your characters and see how they’d cope.

25. Stuck for a plot? Describe a person you adore, and a person you loathe, then pit them against each other in marriage, business or Life.

26. What will your characters be doing long after you’ve told their story? If you know that, you’ve got a good thing going.

27. What is the question that dominates your life? Write it down and write about it.

28. Can’t write today? Go for a coffee, and in your notebook write down ten things that you could use in your novel.

29. For a first-person narrator, self-deprecation is a powerful tool – and a source of humor.

30. If your narrator is first person, have them make errors; it can endear them to the reader.

31. Try and have one character who is a total expert in something; it adds great authority to your text.

32. One speech tic or peculiarity per book is enough – never do more or we’ll all be shaking and shimmering.

33. If it’s a hard and heavy running drama you’re after – try writing injustice.

34. It’s better to describe what a mood causes rather than what a mood is.

35. Just once in a novel give us a detailed account of how something is made – a soup, an engine, a table.

36. Don’t have your characters stand “up” or sit “down” – standing is “up” and sitting is “down.”

37. Have a character draw up elaborate plans and then see all those intentions destroyed or fall apart.

38. Remember: many adults do not get on easily with children – so why should your characters?

39. Keep a mood notebook and count how often your mood shifts in a day. Do the same with your hero.

40. If you want to take your reader in a different direction for just a moment, bring on a very stupid minor character.

41. Either use profanity or don’t; otherwise it’ll just be #$%@ing boring and weak.

42. Assess whether the person closest to you can guess the end of your book. Then decide if that’s what you want.

43. Unless the journey across town is interesting – don’t tell us about it; just have them arrive.

44. Did you have a beloved grandparent, aunt or uncle? Give your protagonist one, too.

45. Of the three major tools at your disposal, Energy, Soul and Intellect, decide which one’s your favorite. And then work it hard!

46. Your mood is more important when reviewing your work than when creating it. So – never revise or re-write when you’re tired or depressed.

47. If you have to use a qualifier, make sure that the word before “-ly” is egregiously different.

48. If you must use the passive voice – lay it on thick; let your protagonists lie there and suffer – or enjoy – what’s being done.

49. If you’re discussing objects, such as cars or boats or guns, get everything right because the world is full of experts – and nerds.

50. If the weather is to be a serious player in your book, we, the readers, have to feel it on our skin.

51. Animals make great fiction characters – but report them, don’t gush over them.

52. Have you made certain that you know what makes your protagonist laugh?

53. Give every chapter at least one word that you have never used before.

54. When using first-person narrators, make sure they know – or don’t know – what they want.

55. When somebody or something is beautiful or magnificent or adorable, we have to know who thinks so, and why.

56. Keep a running count of the chickens that you have to bring home at the end of the book.

57. Don’t let your research lie around in pools; it must stain the entire fabric of the work.

58. It’s offensive to your reader NOT to translate a foreign-language quotation or phrase.

59. If it’s non-fiction, go there – in every possible sense of the term; go to the actual scene, in body, brain and soul.

60. Don’t write about writers. We love them for what they do, not what they are. Unless, of course, you have a poet who’s, say, a serial killer.

An exhaustive list, yes. A fun, enriching, intriguing one in addition though? With great affirmative certainty.

 

To follow the illustrious Delaney yourself, he’s at twitter.com/FDbytheword.