Regardless of how long you’ve been writing, or how successful you’ve been in your literary career, you have more to learn. This series of essays is dedicated to that proposition. Each is a boiled-down observation on some element of the craft I’ve been trying to master for more than fifty years. I offer these thoughts to my colleagues and welcome your lessons in return.
Write Away Essays:
by David Benjamin Since its beginning, literature has been hounded by bluenoses with blue pencils, trying to excise words and ideas offensive to the current legions of decency and orthodoxy. Every writer, sooner or later, has to decide a response to the relentless force of censorship. Last year, prior to the official “launch” event……
Read More...“Housekeeping” isn’t just a matter of dusting windowsills and vacuuming the carpet. For an author, it’s an obligation, to protect readers from getting lost in the midst of a narrative full of characters, details and shifting locations. by David Benjamin My mother didn’t have time for housework. After forsaking an ill-fated teenage marriage, Mom……
Read More...For a writer, more than for anyone in any other profession, you are what you have read. The story of your life, unless you’re Don Quixote or Captain Ahab, is not enough to captivate readers. by David Benjamin Dr. Seuss ruined my life. I was in first grade. My teacher led her class to……
Read More...by David Benjamin We remember one of the last century’s literary immortals, J.D. Salinger, by one great novel, The Catcher in the Rye, ten short stories and a few insignificant novellas. He apparently stopped writing anything 45 years before he died. It’s conceivable that, while living all that time in seclusion somewhere in New Hampshire,……
Read More...by David Benjamin While reading one of Louis Bayard’s historical mysteries, The Pale Blue Eye, I paused to highlight a line and, as I did so, thought about the writer’s ability (or inability) to weave imagery, sound and sensation into a linear narrative, ideally without divertting the story’s flow. Bayard’s line reads, “Her petticoats always……
Read More...by David Benjamin Before the liberating moment when I forsook the quest for a new literary rep, I pitched to one prospective agent a novel called The Voice of the Dog. I got a swift brushoff from the guy’s assistant, whose most salient comment—although obtuse—was: “I just can’t seem to go for animal protagonists. It……
Read More...by David Benjamin Recently, during a book talk, a reader asked a question that stumped me for a moment. “When you start a novel,” he asked, “do you concentrate on plot or character development?” After a pregnant pause, I chose “plot” and bumbled my way through an explanation of how characters tend to be exposed……
Read More...Relatability is an objective not common to all serious writers. There are snobs amongst us. But the ability to evoke the spirit of everyman—or everywoman—can be a powerful bond between author and audience. by David Benjamin Surprisingly, it’s not the aspiration of every serious writer to “engage” with readers. There are authors whose target……
Read More...by David Benjamin It’s not true that reading a book is always time well spent. This only applies to good books. There’s a lot of crap out there. Herewith, a few hints about how to sniff out bad prose before you’ve wasted too much time. Since I became a bibliophile, early in my grammar-school days,……
Read More...by David Benjamin Even before I thought I’d earned the right to call myself a writer, I had heard more than one teacher or mentor refer to my output as “prolific.” I wrote a lot. I might well have served as an illustration of the theory that an infinite number of monkeys banging away at……
Read More...