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.

The articles below are membership-based. If you are interested in reading these articles please click here to Thank you.

Write Away Essays:

Be clever, kid, but not …

By David Benjamin | 05/23/2023 | Comments Off on Be clever, kid, but not …

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...

Genre: Pick it and stick with it

By David Benjamin | 04/25/2023 | Comments Off on Genre: Pick it and stick with it

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...

Cumulative, agglutinative, intuitive

By David Benjamin | 04/04/2023 | Comments Off on Cumulative, agglutinative, intuitive

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...

Finding the “Everyman” sweet spot

By David Benjamin | 03/21/2023 | Comments Off on Finding the “Everyman” sweet spot

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...

When to stop reading a book

By David Benjamin | 03/13/2023 | Comments Off on When to stop reading a book

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...

Cold coffee and hot copy

By David Benjamin | 03/02/2023 | Comments Off on Cold coffee and hot copy

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...

Bill Faulkner makes an elevator pitch

By David Benjamin | 03/02/2023 | Comments Off on Bill Faulkner makes an elevator pitch

Every writer, nowadays, has to ponder the prospect—and the odds—of making an “elevator pitch,” for a price, to a jaded literary agent. The element absent from this exercise in authorial speed-dating is a set of criteria by which the agent will judge the worthiness of the author and the appeal of the pitch. by David……

Read More...

Writing in lost wax

By David Benjamin | 02/02/2023 | Comments Off on Writing in lost wax

How is a novel in progress like an unfinished sculpture in bronze? The similarity lies in the gruntwork that follows a burst of inspiration and the molding of the narrative. by David Benjamin During my Boston days, I made friends with a sculptor from New Hampshire, Allen Taylor, who worked in a technique known as……

Read More...

A nose for news

By David Benjamin | 01/13/2023 | Comments Off on A nose for news

by David Benjamin I worked a while in the unlikely capacity of public relations flack for a consultancy in Boston. The saving grace of this assignment was my boss, the estimable Patrick Pollino, a paragon of old-school—ethical—public relations. More important, he was an editor with few peers. One of Patrick’s “products” at Arthur D. Little,……

Read More...

The telling detail

By David Benjamin | 12/15/2022 | Comments Off on The telling detail

by David Benjamin I recently read a nicely crafted mystery by James Bradberry, Ruins of Civility. In his story, Bradberry describes each setting and character in long, meticulous paragraphs. Since the novel is set among the architecture faculty at Cambridge University, it’s appropriate for the author to apply this close scrutiny to the physical aspects……

Read More...