We taste with four of our five senses: sight, smell, taste, and touch. (We don't use our ears to taste, but you may have noticed that noise is antithetical to tasting. You cannot taste Burgundy in a noisy bar.) Our job as writers is to interpret the signals entering our sensorium and to apply language to make our experience understandable to others. I call this ability to translate taste into words "taste literacy."
There are really only two things you need to know to improve your writing. The first is to read, and the second is to write—and to pay attention while you do. Still, here are a few other maxims to keep in mind.
1. Writing is thinking, and thinking is hard.
2. Write for the reader, not for yourself.
3. Assume limitless intelligence but no prior knowledge.
4. Tell a story nobody else can tell.
5. Position yourself in the narrative. How do you know what you know? Show the reader.
6. If you write on behalf of a business, remember that organizations don’t talk; people talk. You are the person who gives the product a voice.
7. Find your lede. If you pose a question at the top, answer it by the end. If you find yourself pursuing other questions as you write, perhaps your lede is wrong.
8. You may not know what you think at the start of a piece, but you’d better know by the end.
9. Eliminate throat-clearing, needless disclaimers, excessive modifiers. Get to the point. Condense your prose.
10. The stronger your position, the more sober your prose.
11. Exclamation points should be reserved for exclamatory remarks.
12. Writing is therapeutic, but it is not therapy.
13. If you don’t know something, you may need to find it out. Also, you may have an opinion about these facts; this is welcome to your readers.
14. Through-action is the essence of drama. Who, or what, is your protagonist? And what’s afflicting him? Help him battle his way to the point. Dispatching aggressors is the stuff of compelling narrative.
15. Put everything about a subject in one place. And, add texture to your prose.
16. Generate questions in your reader’s mind. If you can keep the reader asking Why?, the reader will keep reading.
17. Don’t assume your experience is the same as your reader’s. Don’t resort to clichés. Nobody’s interested in reading clichés.
18. Be ruthlessly authentic about your own experience. Don’t over-rely on metaphor, especially sexual metaphor. Wine is an experiential product, so find, focus on, and talk about your own true experience in your most authentic voice. This is the story only you can tell.
19. Your voice comprises your vocabulary, tone, syntax, attitudes, and opinions. Each article has a voice, your site has a voice, even a collaborative publication has a voice. And if you’re doing things right, your voice will evolve.
20. Re-read your work the next day, then publish. If you proof instantly, you’ll still be in love with the person you were when you wrote it.
21. Learn to work with an editor. A good editor is on your side, trying to coax out your best story.
22. You need a good ending, but not a clever ending. Don’t trick your reader at the end; they will never forgive you.
23. The end will change the beginning. This is why you cannot write a story in only one pass.
24. If you succeed at this, and if you tell the truth—your own truth—you will have achieved one of the most intimate and beautiful of acts: you will have penetrated another mind.
There are really only two things you need to know to improve your writing. The first is to read, and the second is to write—and to pay attention while you do. Still, here are a few other maxims to keep in mind.
1. Writing is thinking, and thinking is hard.
2. Write for the reader, not for yourself.
3. Assume limitless intelligence but no prior knowledge.
4. Tell a story nobody else can tell.
5. Position yourself in the narrative. How do you know what you know? Show the reader.
6. If you write on behalf of a business, remember that organizations don’t talk; people talk. You are the person who gives the product a voice.
7. Find your lede. If you pose a question at the top, answer it by the end. If you find yourself pursuing other questions as you write, perhaps your lede is wrong.
8. You may not know what you think at the start of a piece, but you’d better know by the end.
9. Eliminate throat-clearing, needless disclaimers, excessive modifiers. Get to the point. Condense your prose.
10. The stronger your position, the more sober your prose.
11. Exclamation points should be reserved for exclamatory remarks.
12. Writing is therapeutic, but it is not therapy.
13. If you don’t know something, you may need to find it out. Also, you may have an opinion about these facts; this is welcome to your readers.
14. Through-action is the essence of drama. Who, or what, is your protagonist? And what’s afflicting him? Help him battle his way to the point. Dispatching aggressors is the stuff of compelling narrative.
15. Put everything about a subject in one place. And, add texture to your prose.
16. Generate questions in your reader’s mind. If you can keep the reader asking Why?, the reader will keep reading.
17. Don’t assume your experience is the same as your reader’s. Don’t resort to clichés. Nobody’s interested in reading clichés.
18. Be ruthlessly authentic about your own experience. Don’t over-rely on metaphor, especially sexual metaphor. Wine is an experiential product, so find, focus on, and talk about your own true experience in your most authentic voice. This is the story only you can tell.
19. Your voice comprises your vocabulary, tone, syntax, attitudes, and opinions. Each article has a voice, your site has a voice, even a collaborative publication has a voice. And if you’re doing things right, your voice will evolve.
20. Re-read your work the next day, then publish. If you proof instantly, you’ll still be in love with the person you were when you wrote it.
21. Learn to work with an editor. A good editor is on your side, trying to coax out your best story.
22. You need a good ending, but not a clever ending. Don’t trick your reader at the end; they will never forgive you.
23. The end will change the beginning. This is why you cannot write a story in only one pass.
24. If you succeed at this, and if you tell the truth—your own truth—you will have achieved one of the most intimate and beautiful of acts: you will have penetrated another mind.
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Thank you for sharing this with us! I tried to type as you spoke but it was better just to listen.
Posted by: Jessyca Frederick | June 27, 2010 at 01:12 PM
Thanks for coming, Jessyca. I'm glad you found it valuable.
Posted by: Meg Houston Maker | June 27, 2010 at 01:31 PM
This list is extremely helpful. Thanks!
Posted by: Jenious | June 28, 2010 at 06:19 PM
Thanks for the kind comment, Jenious. Cheers!
Posted by: Meg Houston Maker | June 28, 2010 at 07:30 PM
Nice piece and good advice, Meg. Your theses ring true in most sorts of writing; at least, in my experience it does.
Sorry I had to miss your session at WBC10, but glad I could catch up here.
Cheers,
K.
Posted by: Kathleen Rake | June 28, 2010 at 08:46 PM
Meg,
Besides my own wine blog, I run a company that is managing social media for 1200 client companies and we have a large group of bloggers developing voices for others creating over 1000 posts a week. I am distributing your list to all of our writers....it is one of the most poignant walk-downs I have stumbled across recently. Thanks for organizing and sharing the knowledge,
Adam
Posted by: Adam Japko | June 28, 2010 at 10:02 PM
Of all the salient points you have, I really keyed in on the Voice. Thanks for putting it all together.
Posted by: Steve Shanahan | June 29, 2010 at 01:02 PM
Good stuff here, Meg. keep pushing for the art of writing. In the realm of wine blogs I fear that social presence and personality is more important to most and that's a shame because popularity fades, but respect endures.
Posted by: Jeff | June 29, 2010 at 01:25 PM
Adam, Steve, Jeff: Thanks so much for the thoughtful comments. I'm glad these strike a chord. The response to this list has made me think about writing a short expository post on each. And I've already thought of one more (stay tuned).
Posted by: Meg Houston Maker | June 29, 2010 at 06:57 PM
Kathleen, I'm glad these ring true. It was really great to meet you in person at last at WBC10.
Posted by: Meg Houston Maker | June 29, 2010 at 07:01 PM
When you listed these at WBC10, I kept forgetting I was at a wine bloggers' conference. These are great advice for any writing, especially fiction! I've linked to them in a post-conference piece on my writing blog.
Cecilia
Posted by: Cecilia Dominic | June 30, 2010 at 02:17 AM
Cecilia, since I'm a nonfiction writer, I'm glad to know you think these points are relevant to fiction, too, offering general—though hopefully not generic—advice to anyone who tries to put ideas into words.
Posted by: Meg Houston Maker | June 30, 2010 at 08:21 AM
Wonderful Meg, thanks for posting these up!
Posted by: Christopher Watkins | July 04, 2010 at 03:03 PM
This is marvelous! A good dose of inspiration.
Posted by: Anne | August 19, 2010 at 01:35 PM