Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Wrtiter

1.  There are two types of writers.  The first, those who write of events and the individuals within them to the same degree the writer believes the events occurred and the individuals behaved.  The second, writers who compose scenes and individuals from the whole cloth of their imagination, which includes invented events and contrived characters.

2.  The former type of writers are nonfiction writers.  The later are storytellers, which is to say they are not bound by their impressions of what happened in fact.

3.  Children are often remonstrated or chastised when telling stories of their own invention as though the stories were as those of the first type of writer.  Some children see the irony in the remonstrations, in many ways transforming the  irony into the necessary energy to become writers of the second type.

4.  There are two other types of writers.  These are not always spoken of:  writers who insist on putting more information into their narrative than necessary and writers who do not.

5.  Even though there are lines to be drawn relative to excessive or scanty details, writers who leave things out that they could have included are more apt to attract readerships than writers who tell us more about things than we wish to know.

6.  Writers, for the most part inventive sorts, tend to save the outer limits of their imaginations for their descriptions of what outside forces are most responsible for the lack of sales of their most recent book.

7.  The most difficult thing for a writer to learn is where to begin a story.

8.  The next most difficult thing for a writer to learn is where the story ends and, thus, when to stop.

9.  Not all writers are able to write on key.  There is an agonizing comparison between a writer and most singers at most neighborhood taverns on karaoke night.

10.  In more recent times, the growing conventional wisdom is to trust writers who invent their stories to a greater degree than writers who limit their composition to demonstrable fact.

11. Writers are kidnap victims, their essays and stories become their ransom notes.

12.  It is one thing to believe a writer, another to trust the writer.

13.  Every time a writer procrastinates, the story is winning.