You know, that advice about leaving something before you revise it, is so true. Even when you think it's perfect, wait a while. Write something else, read a bunch or go on a holiday then come back. Fresh eyes see every fault. Well mostly. Or they aren't fresh enough. I was at a night with Raymond E Feist and he said give your characters some weird quirk, and the reference was a character who liked to eat raw onions as if they were apples.
This is so true in many things. I taught 1st grade. My little scholars would come back smarter after a two week Christmas break. Other teachers could verify this.
Thank you for compiling his best advice! Hemingway's response and suggestion to his friend wondering why he made him cry so much in his book is priceless!
@@BookfoxI'm finishing a one act play on Chaplin. This tutorial is very helpful. 1. A moral compass. Validating my character's POV. I'm already on the right track. ❤
He actually doesn't suggest it was Soviets, he spells it out on the screen EXPLICITLY. Most Americans think Siberian labour camps were invented by the Soviets because they've been trained to think "socialism = evil." I had the same impulse to clarify that it was Czarist oppression rather than Marxist. We have to say this clearly because capitalist media has ideology baked into it. I went to a Soviet museum in Tallinn, Estonia, last year and the exhibits pushed the notion that there was 75 years of "brainwashing" under Soviet rule which came in the form of social pressures like parades and youth groups. It described several things about my own childhood in Minnesota that contributed to my ideological formation and "American exceptionalism." Cub Scouts and the Pledge of Allegiance were just the tip of the iceberg. Nationalism = intergenerational ideological programming.
@@Barklord please stop downplaying the horrors of Soviet regime... go read some Solzenitsyn or Herling Grudzinski, have a look at history of cannibal island or where the Gulags started - Solovetzky Islands, and perhaps go visit some more museums than one museum in Tallin, look at how October Revolution started. NO, IT WAS NOT SOME BRAINWASHING.
@@Barklord Gulags, the starvation in Urkaine/URSS and China, povert on Africa, Cuba and North Korea. So yes, socialism is evil. Americans was trained to see it right.
Do you mean to say that during your childhood, you were not forced to learn many life's hardest lessons while armed only with the innocent mind and limited coping skills of, well, a child? ;)
@@laurasalo6160 The term “hardest lessons” is a subject concept. Earnest Hemingway’s mother dressed him as a girl and Ernest was apparently ridiculed for his compliance in this matter. Nothing even remotely like that happened to me, in childhood or at any time. Whatever I may have been forced to learn during my youth did not seem particularly difficult to me.
@scottjackson163 I certainly take your point. Tho i just think there are many lessons about love and loss, death, betrayal etc that we learn as children first, even if we dont realize it. There are countless 'firsts' that one experiences very often as a child, for example: Loss of a grandparent (relative), Someone steal from you, Perhaps some kind of abuse occurs, A friend betrays your trust, A parent breaks an important promise made to you, Perhaps you have a cute little 'relationship' at school and the girl you dated (held hands with) in third grade tells you she doesnt like you anymore, Disappointing loss of a big sports competition that you worked hard at- and deserved, Loss of a family pet to old age or a terrible accident... I just think many harsh life lessons are first experienced in our childhood years.
Hey, boring books are needed as well. The traumatic childhood might just be necessary to drama writers. Also, being a human without a disbalance means you dont seek for things, you are whole, you dont need to feed an endless void of darkness like we all bastards do or seek validation reliving trauma trying to fix the past till we die. So you would be just fine.
Revising, I think, is the key takeaway here. My main focus is poetry, and one survey found that like Hemingway, most of the best poets will revise a piece literally dozens of times before publication. They set themselves the highest standards, and simply don't give up till they are satisfied. One of the key differentiators between the best poets and the rest of us is that they simply work harder at their craft. And they are also open to editorial criticism. I have a relative who was hosting Nobel winner Seamus Heaney before a reading of his newest work. She is a critic, so he said to her "I'm not sure about this one - there's something not quite right here". She read it and replied "I see the problem - this isn't one poem, it's two." Heaney was humble enough to respond "Of course! You're right!" and he edited it there and then.
Thank you for the video. I actually was really hooked up when I first read the interview with Ernest Hemingway, The Art of Fiction No. 21. Which really inspired me to continue my work. I like his style, being a journalist , showed how effective he was with words. But overall as a writer and as an artist I think is best to find your own style and most of all feel comfortable writing about the subject. One personal anecdote, when I was writing about a character , especially when the dialogue kicked in, I said to myself “ Well I will never say that, it’s so rude” and then a thought run through me as a response :“Of course you won’t because it’s not you it’s someone else”. And then it hit me how interesting the brain works, I created a character with certain traits and lifestyle and I dive really deep that I disconnect from my personal beliefs and values and create something new. It’ s fun 😁. Writing is really fun.
Hitting wayne was also a big time fisherman and actually part of one of his fishing trips was what encouraged him to write that book old man and the sea. I'm new at writing.I like your channel.I hope to learn a lot more.Thank you
I've been working on my first novel for two solid years, and I've lost count of the number of times I have revised it. I cut it down by 50000 words, so it's now 90000 words, and I was afraid that I cut too much. After watching this video, I learned that I am in good company!
I love your videos! Very helpful and inspiring. And also I really appreciate how you deliver your advice. If I just hear advice (no matter how well it is said) it doesn't stick fully with me. You have just the right way of combining what you say with showing notes, quotes etc. Makes it way easier and more effective for me to follow and really take it all in. Thanks for your awesome work!
Tip 9 is the most valuable of these. Any story can be good; What matters is if you possess understanding of what makes a story good. I can write 10,000 words, but when I return, will I find that I've made 10,000 mistakes? Let the story rot with an imposed prison sentence, then come back to the story, then read it, then write your notes, then subject your work to a peer review, then take notes from your peers, then weigh them against your notes and story, and THEN determine if, not only is the story any measure of ideal, but if you have any idea about any of this. You can't know as much of the present as you could with help from the future.
There are authors who pretend to know stuff they don't, and then there are those who ACT like they know something they don't and no one second guesses them, conviction and confidence is everything.
This basically made me realise that, at least for the "write with your body, not your mind" i was already writting like him. I dont think i ever read any books by hamingway but i'm surprised by how much i've indentified myself with his approach to writting.
So, I’ve read a lot about writing and it’s funny how some advice has told me to never base characters off real people and others like Hemingway said otherwise. I guess whatever advice hits home for me is all I can ask for.
Maybe a mix? Never admit you based a character off of someone else, and maybe you can make the character unique by adding or subtracting features and details. But mostly never admit it. The world has been wondering who Ron Weasley is ever since JK Rowling admitted that Hermione Granger is basically the best, successful version of herself.
@@thatfamily2917 I was mostly referring to how there can be conflicting information about writing. For myself, I’ve found diving into human psychology has helped me understand the human condition a little better and making sure personality traits and behaviors correlate with each other, but I don’t see anything wrong with using real life people as long as they know I’ve used them as inspiration. This also could backfire if it’s a person you don’t like. So, discretion is advised.
@@Eldalynn right? I have a friend who based her villain on a chick she hates. Thing is, the chick in question is a queen bee and may actually buy the book when it comes out just to take the moral high ground. If she figures out the villain's inspiration she's gonna be ticked.
@@thatfamily2917 I remember reading a bird by bird by Ann Lamott, and she like Hemingway, uses real life people as inspiration. But her advice was to change the persons physical descriptions, name, ethnicity, nationality enough for them to be unrecognizable. I believe this is generally good advice-but some people have such good intuitions that it might not even matter. So it depends on if she can pick up on these signs within the book or not.
"Everything but the old man and the sea." The relationship is right there in the title... it's not what you would traditionally think of as a 'relationship' but many sailors and fishers describe it as such....
Good stuff ! Also, anyone interested in what EH was trying, in his own mind, to achieve with his very particular, modernist approach to writing, should read Green Hills of Africa. Near the beginning, there’s an unusually candid conversation at a campfire (with a well-read European), discussing his own ambitions as an artist, as well as the great novels and writers that influenced him.
If you want to dive deeper into Hemingway's work, let me recommend "Reading Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises" by H.R. Stoneback. It is part of a series in which his novels and short stories are discussed in depth. I reread "Sun" with the book in hand. I'd read a chapter of the novel, then Stoneback's chapter discussing it. He points out in depth the background behind the characters and their actions (for example, Jake's long walk through Paris parallels a Catholic pilgrim's walk through the city, point for point). The books are expensive, so I used my library's interlibrary loan to get a copy for free.
I've taken your suggestion and got both on Kindle a minute ago. I write short stories, but I'm not a voracious reader, and a few days ago realized that I would benefit from in-depth literary analysis of some great writing, and voilà! I saw your recommendation. Thank you.
I notice that the Leave Things Out dictum also applies to EH’s dialog. He must have noticed that often, the most important thing that passes between two people in a scene, is NOT spoken.
@@BookfoxYes, I always think of this incredibly simple story but so entertaining, "The Maltese Falcon." A story doesn't need too many moving parts to finish in a great finale. Just one or two clues all getting solved to end the case!
Just a quick note: Dostoevsky wasn't imprisoned by the Soviet Union. His arrest and sentencing happened in 1849, long before the Soviet Union existed (which was established in 1922). He was actually arrested by Tsarist authorities for his involvement in a political group. Hope this clears things up!
The whole Dostoyevsky example of seeking justice after imprisonment was rather boxed. It was in the labor camps where he became acquainted with the Bible, having been a socialist/atheist up until that point. It is where he identified with the story of Job. This experience had a transformative effect upon Fydor that erradicated his former beliefs and left a mark all of his work from that point on. The discovery of suffering in order to gain redemption is a constant theme the he brought to each of his masterpieces. Also. I don't agree that you have to have a screwed up childhood in order to write. Every human gets tangled up in their own experiences in life; losses, tragedies, ect. You don't need to be looking for trauma in order to find it; it's everywhere. Life is a battle.
As it was already pointed out Dostoevsky was prosecuted under the Tsar...however he wasn't innocent . He had been mixed up in a deadly plot. He was sentenced to death .Then reprieved. . He did have very strong feelings , and the Mr Bookfox above is correct there and in general on this aspect.
I've read before that romance should be avoided in murder mysteries, as a serious relationship will detract from the plot... I don't think anyone writes them anymore, though.
Gonna go rewatch this one on the tv with a coffee and take notes. Any chance you could do one on Haruki Murakami? Even if it’s less researched? (I know you went ALL in on this one so)
Ya know what, as a fellow TH-camr, I bet if you did this type of video as your channels niche (studying great authors quotes/teachings and organizing all of it) then each individual would blow up along with your channel. On that note, I’m going to subscribe
JK was a jackass and much dismissed as a person in his time but, make no mistake, he was interesting and influential as an author, an excellent marketer of himself.
Amnesia. Yeah I had it but then I added in where he did it to himself on purpose so the reader knows the guy did it himself and the guy he is running from is ... his husband who wants him to rebel against the empire even though hubby will be mind erased if he takes one real act of rebellion.
It’s indicative of the western sense of individualism that he should assert so boldly, “one must have a strong sense of moral justice”. The best stories are those where every character (I intentionally avoid phrases like pro/antagonist) has discernible understandable motivations. No character is so boring as the one labeled ‘villain’ and wants to blow up the world s/he lives on because they’re “like totally evil or whatever”. The dubious, the grey, is compelling. Labeling one person/action as good, and another as evil is boring, it’s stories for children to impart morality, but people should grow past the simple.
Hey , thanks. Now, instead of dispair, I think I’m doing pretty good. I’m 3 yrs and 300k words into my story. In the second year I discovered I was writing a science fiction. Lady Luck showed me last week how the alien connection actually is crucial to the Main Character . This week I’m taking the week off. So happy am I. This author shit works. Yeah, I will be dumping a lot of words, don’t worry. And it’s based on a true person, no kidding. Curious? Ok. An alien kid decides to come to Earth for his science fair project. He doesn’t know his councilor is using him as a probe.
Not only was Dostoevsky sent to a hard labour camp for four years for being a member of what was seen as a subversive literary group, but he was actually lining up to be shot by firing squad when a letter of reprieve arrived by cart from the Tsar. The 4 year sentence was what he got instead.
Yeah, I was trying to write about ancient greek hero, now I'm afraid my reader would know that I'm not genuine ancient, not genuine greek and not genuine hero
Hi Bookfox, Thanks for the video! I have a ‘How to Write like Hemingway’ book that I still haven’t gotten to but now I feel like I don’t need to read it! 😂 I have a question about the importance of reading widely for an aspiring novelist. Is there an email we can send those kinds of questions to? Also my husband was a student of yours at Biola and pointed me to your channel!
Oh, you married Scotty! Cool, gotta thank him for me for sending you to my channel. :) I think reading widely is super important for an aspiring novelists. But it's also important to read the type of books you want to write. Is that what you mean?
@@Bookfox yes-well to give a little background, I applied for a Master’s in Creative Writing and made it to the final round of the interview process, but I did not get in; their biggest piece of advice to me was to read more novels so I can start to adopt the mannerisms and styles of authors I like. I’m the type of person that has a hard time embarking on an assignment without knowing how it’s going to get me to a goal. And it just seems like if I read a novel here, a novel there, I may just flounder around not really getting closer to my ultimate goal of writing compelling fiction that others want to read.
@@EmilyPaperNano May I suggest an answer to your question? Think of it as a three step process. (1) Know what your flaws are. Plot? Character? Style? What exactly? You must have had feedback from people who are really good critics. (2) Say it is plot. Now select books (either in your favorite genre, or just a different genre) that are famous for their marvelous plot. Read and study their plots: a structure, a certain number of story beats - again, pay extra attention to the things that you know where your flaws are. (3) Now create a new plot for your story and put this in the hands of those really good critics. What do they say? Have you improved? I bet you have. I hope this is the type of 'homework assignment' that you now know it will get you to a goal of becoming better, of learning what you have still to learn. Good luck and best wishes from another aspiring novelist (who is learning by writing short and more and more longer stories).
@@TonBil1 hey! I appreciate your answer! I think it’s helpful to think about focusing on one area I’m weak in rather than on writing as a whole when thinking about what books I want to glean wisdom from.
I agree with having a sense of justice, right and wrong. Unfortunately I don’t think that writing is particularly popular these days. We live in a fallen world. A particularly selfish and degenerate world. People seem to prefer morally Grey characters, characters that do not embrace goodness, justice, or righteousness, but rather they are all twisted, fallen, selfish, degenerate, and moral relativism seems to dominate rather than having a moral compass.🙄🙄🙄
@ I happen to prefer characters that are admirable, with a moral code, and not dirtbag. Can’t stand pathetic gray characters in Hollywood and modern books; alcoholics, drug attic‘s, cowards, etc. No thanks.🤮
The iceberg one simply hurts me, I feel like I’m being stabbed repeatedly in fact. I can’t write lore upon lore and then edit it out! How would the readers know why this thing happens or this other thing doesn’t happen? I’m the one with the knowledge they need to learn, right? Shouldn’t I tell them all they need to know? Or should it be implied? I don’t know and it’s hurting me 😭
"Hemingway's novel always had a romantic relationship in them. Basically all of them, except The Old Man And The Sea." Oh, you fool. Not many are aware of the secret version where the fisherman, for days under the sun, starts to become crazy and sees his misadventure as a romantic cruise between him and the hooked fish...
Great video. I am a writer/published author and Hemingway is a favorite. I was inspired by his description of the aftermath on a battlefield in A Farewell To Arms in that he wrote not of the blood and gore and carnage but of the papers lying and floating about everywhere: letters home, photos of girlfriends and wives, unfinished letters meant to be finished and mailed. Much more moving than describing death and destruction
This is True Sentence: Learn to edit and revise yourself as I did, per Hemingway; now I am on the historical record as the "most egegriously plagiarized writer" in literature, because I was ruthlessly minimalist w/ my self-editing & style, and made no money, only a legacy. That was a stretch of panache, but nonetheless true.
*Marketing is everything*. Technique, style, knowledge, storytelling expertise, powerful themes, world-building, and even compelling character arcs won't mean jack sheet if you're utterly invisible. 😂🤣😂 Unfortunately, only the wealthy can win. So... be rich. If ya can't, then just become independently wealthy. 💵🇱🇷💵 🐲✨🐲✨🐲✨ "Before I start, I must see my end. Destination known, my mind's journey now begins. Upon my chariot, heart and soul's fate revealed. In time, all points converge; hope's strength, resteeled. But to earn final peace at the universe's endless refrain, we must see all in nothingness... before we start again." 🐲✨🐲✨🐲✨ --Diamond Dragons (series)
I enjoyed this video very much but please do not use "A Movable Feast" as a source to anything Hemingway did or said.... Despite the copious notes he had for the book, the book was really written by Mary Hemingway and the editors.
I think writing "people" instead of "characters" is bad advice. People enjoy narratives because they're unrealistic. How many entertaining, nonfiction books aren't there that don't twist the truth and leave out vital information for the sake of entertaining? We don't want to read about real people, plain and simple. "Characters" are handcrafted to only contain details to give the audience emotion, and tell the author's message. They aren't meant to be real or realistic.
If you don't like Hemingway, you're not alone. Hemingway never did write as well as Proust. Hemingway didn't lack words from a dictionary. Proust was more attentive and accurate than Hemingway, and wrote with greater precision and skill. That said? Hemingway had real insight and craft. His advice is solid and his mastery of writing is self-evident. His advice will not make one less capable. If you want another option? Try Gerald Murnane's The Plains. It's easily as lean as Old Man and the Sea. But has more literary merit, in my opinion.
You're so wrong about old man in the sea. You couldn't be more wrong. The old man was so caught up and in love with the fish. And on many levels levels, you have to be a fisherman. I guess to understand and evidently you're not a fisherman. I'm not putting you down. I'm just saying there was definitely a love story.
Man! Slow down, you are talking to writers. We are in this for the long game. You're giving me anxiety attacks. Yeah, you have ground breaking ideas I couldn't take 4 minutes of this video.
When I was watching this I already knew I will be rewatching multiple times. This is priceless. Thank you.
yes, it is!
You know, that advice about leaving something before you revise it, is so true. Even when you think it's perfect, wait a while. Write something else, read a bunch or go on a holiday then come back. Fresh eyes see every fault. Well mostly. Or they aren't fresh enough.
I was at a night with Raymond E Feist and he said give your characters some weird quirk, and the reference was a character who liked to eat raw onions as if they were apples.
This is so true in many things.
I taught 1st grade. My little scholars would come back smarter after a two week Christmas break. Other teachers could verify this.
This also works very well with joke writing!
Yes. I am writing a one act play. After writing what I feel is strong, compelling dialogue one day--seems weak on another.😮
Thank you for compiling his best advice! Hemingway's response and suggestion to his friend wondering why he made him cry so much in his book is priceless!
Ha ha, I know, Hemingway is so Hemingway!
@@BookfoxI'm finishing a one act play on Chaplin. This tutorial is very helpful.
1. A moral compass. Validating my character's POV.
I'm already on the right track. ❤
Just quickly, Dostoevsky was sent to a work camp under the Tzar, not under the Soviets as the video suggests.
He actually doesn't suggest it was Soviets, he spells it out on the screen EXPLICITLY. Most Americans think Siberian labour camps were invented by the Soviets because they've been trained to think "socialism = evil." I had the same impulse to clarify that it was Czarist oppression rather than Marxist. We have to say this clearly because capitalist media has ideology baked into it.
I went to a Soviet museum in Tallinn, Estonia, last year and the exhibits pushed the notion that there was 75 years of "brainwashing" under Soviet rule which came in the form of social pressures like parades and youth groups. It described several things about my own childhood in Minnesota that contributed to my ideological formation and "American exceptionalism." Cub Scouts and the Pledge of Allegiance were just the tip of the iceberg. Nationalism = intergenerational ideological programming.
@@Barklord please stop downplaying the horrors of Soviet regime... go read some Solzenitsyn or Herling Grudzinski, have a look at history of cannibal island or where the Gulags started - Solovetzky Islands, and perhaps go visit some more museums than one museum in Tallin, look at how October Revolution started. NO, IT WAS NOT SOME BRAINWASHING.
@@BarklordSocialism is only evil when it's murderous, starves it's workers, robs from the rest.
@@Barklord Gulags, the starvation in Urkaine/URSS and China, povert on Africa, Cuba and North Korea. So yes, socialism is evil. Americans was trained to see it right.
Good important catch
Well, I guess I’m screwed right out of the gate: I had a happy childhood.
Do you mean to say that during your childhood, you were not forced to learn many life's hardest lessons while armed only with the innocent mind and limited coping skills of, well, a child? ;)
@@laurasalo6160 The term “hardest lessons” is a subject concept. Earnest Hemingway’s mother dressed him as a girl and Ernest was apparently ridiculed for his compliance in this matter. Nothing even remotely like that happened to me, in childhood or at any time. Whatever I may have been forced to learn during my youth did not seem particularly difficult to me.
@scottjackson163 I certainly take your point. Tho i just think there are many lessons about love and loss, death, betrayal etc that we learn as children first, even if we dont realize it.
There are countless 'firsts' that one experiences very often as a child, for example:
Loss of a grandparent (relative),
Someone steal from you,
Perhaps some kind of abuse occurs,
A friend betrays your trust,
A parent breaks an important promise made to you,
Perhaps you have a cute little 'relationship' at school and the girl you dated (held hands with) in third grade tells you she doesnt like you anymore,
Disappointing loss of a big sports competition that you worked hard at- and deserved,
Loss of a family pet to old age or a terrible accident...
I just think many harsh life lessons are first experienced in our childhood years.
Just focus hard on all those little difficult moments. You can do it!
Hey, boring books are needed as well. The traumatic childhood might just be necessary to drama writers.
Also, being a human without a disbalance means you dont seek for things, you are whole, you dont need to feed an endless void of darkness like we all bastards do or seek validation reliving trauma trying to fix the past till we die. So you would be just fine.
Writing with your body! Huge insight. Going to put that and the iceberg to use on these drafts
Revising, I think, is the key takeaway here. My main focus is poetry, and one survey found that like Hemingway, most of the best poets will revise a piece literally dozens of times before publication. They set themselves the highest standards, and simply don't give up till they are satisfied. One of the key differentiators between the best poets and the rest of us is that they simply work harder at their craft.
And they are also open to editorial criticism. I have a relative who was hosting Nobel winner Seamus Heaney before a reading of his newest work. She is a critic, so he said to her "I'm not sure about this one - there's something not quite right here". She read it and replied "I see the problem - this isn't one poem, it's two." Heaney was humble enough to respond "Of course! You're right!" and he edited it there and then.
This information is really helpful. Thank you for providing this information - I intend to use it.
Thank you for the video.
I actually was really hooked up when I first read the interview with Ernest Hemingway, The Art of Fiction No. 21. Which really inspired me to continue my work. I like his style, being a journalist , showed how effective he was with words. But overall as a writer and as an artist I think is best to find your own style and most of all feel comfortable writing about the subject.
One personal anecdote, when I was writing about a character , especially when the dialogue kicked in, I said to myself “ Well I will never say that, it’s so rude” and then a thought run through me as a response :“Of course you won’t because it’s not you it’s someone else”. And then it hit me how interesting the brain works, I created a character with certain traits and lifestyle and I dive really deep that I disconnect from my personal beliefs and values and create something new. It’ s fun 😁. Writing is really fun.
Hitting wayne was also a big time fisherman and actually part of one of his fishing trips was what encouraged him to write that book old man and the sea. I'm new at writing.I like your channel.I hope to learn a lot more.Thank you
I've been working on my first novel for two solid years, and I've lost count of the number of times I have revised it. I cut it down by 50000 words, so it's now 90000 words, and I was afraid that I cut too much. After watching this video, I learned that I am in good company!
What's it about?
I love your videos! Very helpful and inspiring. And also I really appreciate how you deliver your advice. If I just hear advice (no matter how well it is said) it doesn't stick fully with me. You have just the right way of combining what you say with showing notes, quotes etc. Makes it way easier and more effective for me to follow and really take it all in. Thanks for your awesome work!
I appreciate those kind words! Happy to help you along the writing journey.
It's very, very true. This Bookfox guy puts in the effort. I guess he scrutinizes his scripts just as much as Hemingway did with his manuscripts.
Wow, thanks Fox, incredibile contens once more!
Tip 9 is the most valuable of these. Any story can be good; What matters is if you possess understanding of what makes a story good. I can write 10,000 words, but when I return, will I find that I've made 10,000 mistakes? Let the story rot with an imposed prison sentence, then come back to the story, then read it, then write your notes, then subject your work to a peer review, then take notes from your peers, then weigh them against your notes and story, and THEN determine if, not only is the story any measure of ideal, but if you have any idea about any of this. You can't know as much of the present as you could with help from the future.
Thanks!
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed the video!
That T shirt was very mesmerizing
Fr I was looking at it the entire video
I want an ace story where love is not romantic or sexual; but altruistic or breathtaking, abundant, worldly, and easy.
There are authors who pretend to know stuff they don't, and then there are those who ACT like they know something they don't and no one second guesses them, conviction and confidence is everything.
This basically made me realise that, at least for the "write with your body, not your mind" i was already writting like him. I dont think i ever read any books by hamingway but i'm surprised by how much i've indentified myself with his approach to writting.
Great video.
This was great. Very helpful aggregate of work.
Love it! Leave the history of the universe out 😊
6:50
*Superman theme plays*
Sometimes, what people WANT is a symbol.
LOVE your tee-shirt!
So, I’ve read a lot about writing and it’s funny how some advice has told me to never base characters off real people and others like Hemingway said otherwise.
I guess whatever advice hits home for me is all I can ask for.
Maybe a mix? Never admit you based a character off of someone else, and maybe you can make the character unique by adding or subtracting features and details. But mostly never admit it. The world has been wondering who Ron Weasley is ever since JK Rowling admitted that Hermione Granger is basically the best, successful version of herself.
@@thatfamily2917 I was mostly referring to how there can be conflicting information about writing.
For myself, I’ve found diving into human psychology has helped me understand the human condition a little better and making sure personality traits and behaviors correlate with each other, but I don’t see anything wrong with using real life people as long as they know I’ve used them as inspiration. This also could backfire if it’s a person you don’t like. So, discretion is advised.
@@Eldalynn right? I have a friend who based her villain on a chick she hates. Thing is, the chick in question is a queen bee and may actually buy the book when it comes out just to take the moral high ground. If she figures out the villain's inspiration she's gonna be ticked.
@@thatfamily2917 I remember reading a bird by bird by Ann Lamott, and she like Hemingway, uses real life people as inspiration. But her advice was to change the persons physical descriptions, name, ethnicity, nationality enough for them to be unrecognizable. I believe this is generally good advice-but some people have such good intuitions that it might not even matter. So it depends on if she can pick up on these signs within the book or not.
I know for certain that the main character , and the basis of the story, of "To Have and have not" was based on a machinist he knew in Key West.
This content is amazing. Thank you
this is THE most weighty video on this subject - tthanks
"Everything but the old man and the sea." The relationship is right there in the title... it's not what you would traditionally think of as a 'relationship' but many sailors and fishers describe it as such....
An amazingly informative video. Thank you for condensing so much information for us and deleting the rest of the ice berg ;)
This is great and very helpful. Thank you.
Good stuff ! Also, anyone interested in what EH was trying, in his own mind, to achieve with his very particular, modernist approach to writing, should read Green Hills of Africa.
Near the beginning, there’s an unusually candid conversation at a campfire (with a well-read European), discussing his own ambitions as an artist, as well as the great novels and writers that influenced him.
Welcome back. I needed to watch this again.
People in 2025 will never know the lore behind this video.
Oh wait... Nevermind 😅.
Old Man and the Sea, Santiago has a romance with the sea. That's a kind of love.
Wow! I video I actually have to watch twice and take notes from! :)
Thank you! I try to pack a lot of helpful content inside!
that tip about a simple step is a gold baby step when it comes to writing tips
Terrific!
If you want to dive deeper into Hemingway's work, let me recommend "Reading Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises" by H.R. Stoneback. It is part of a series in which his novels and short stories are discussed in depth. I reread "Sun" with the book in hand. I'd read a chapter of the novel, then Stoneback's chapter discussing it. He points out in depth the background behind the characters and their actions (for example, Jake's long walk through Paris parallels a Catholic pilgrim's walk through the city, point for point). The books are expensive, so I used my library's interlibrary loan to get a copy for free.
Thanks for the recommendation!
I've taken your suggestion and got both on Kindle a minute ago. I write short stories, but I'm not a voracious reader, and a few days ago realized that I would benefit from in-depth literary analysis of some great writing, and voilà! I saw your recommendation. Thank you.
Thanks. Good info! Try decafe for the presentation.
I notice that the Leave Things Out dictum also applies to EH’s dialog. He must have noticed that often, the most important thing that passes between two people in a scene, is NOT spoken.
He literally says: only duplicates of me and myself can be good writers.
Great advice. Especially the kiss part. Keep it simple atupid3
47 times! Thank you for this.
I know, right?
(5:55) Ice cream is cold, because if it was not cold we wouldn’t call it ice cream!
Excellent. Thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
@@BookfoxYes, I always think of this incredibly simple story but so entertaining, "The Maltese Falcon." A story doesn't need too many moving parts to finish in a great finale. Just one or two clues all getting solved to end the case!
Thank you for this. Super helpful.
Manuals help, talent paramount.
GREAT video!
Outstanding 😊
Just a quick note: Dostoevsky wasn't imprisoned by the Soviet Union. His arrest and sentencing happened in 1849, long before the Soviet Union existed (which was established in 1922). He was actually arrested by Tsarist authorities for his involvement in a political group. Hope this clears things up!
Wow! So much good content packed into such a simple video. Hemmingway would be proud ;)
I aim to make Big Papa happy!
Thank you this was fantastic 🎉
You're very welcome!
The whole Dostoyevsky example of seeking justice after imprisonment was rather boxed. It was in the labor camps where he became acquainted with the Bible, having been a socialist/atheist up until that point. It is where he identified with the story of Job. This experience had a transformative effect upon Fydor that erradicated his former beliefs and left a mark all of his work from that point on. The discovery of suffering in order to gain redemption is a constant theme the he brought to each of his masterpieces.
Also. I don't agree that you have to have a screwed up childhood in order to write. Every human gets tangled up in their own experiences in life; losses, tragedies, ect. You don't need to be looking for trauma in order to find it; it's everywhere. Life is a battle.
As it was already pointed out Dostoevsky was prosecuted under the Tsar...however he wasn't innocent . He had been mixed up in a deadly plot. He was sentenced to death .Then reprieved. . He did have very strong feelings , and the Mr Bookfox above is correct there and in general on this aspect.
I've read before that romance should be avoided in murder mysteries, as a serious relationship will detract from the plot... I don't think anyone writes them anymore, though.
Hmmm, I wouldn't say you should ever avoid romance. It's always a draw no matter what genre you're writing.
@@Bookfox I believe it was said for the killer only, however. I do agree with you that a relationship adds to the draw in any work of fiction.
Oh, that makes sense to avoid it for the killer, if your goal is that the killer shouldn't be too sympathetic.
I could imagine that if the romance thread is stonger than the mystery then yes.
@@Bookfox A murder mystery with a very sympathetic, kind and loving culprit - wouldn't that make for a killer of a story?! [pun intended]
Gonna go rewatch this one on the tv with a coffee and take notes. Any chance you could do one on Haruki Murakami? Even if it’s less researched? (I know you went ALL in on this one so)
Ya know what, as a fellow TH-camr, I bet if you did this type of video as your channels niche (studying great authors quotes/teachings and organizing all of it) then each individual would blow up along with your channel. On that note, I’m going to subscribe
Yes, it took such an enormous amount of research! I love Murakami and have read everything of his, so it would be fun ...
@@Bookfox I'm subbing in the hopes that you do this niche (research and broadcast famous authors). You can be our writing sensei
"There is wisdom in wine". - Jack Korouac.
JK was a jackass and much dismissed as a person in his time but, make no mistake, he was interesting and influential as an author, an excellent marketer of himself.
Amazing video
Speaking of Hemmingway the novel A Farewell to Arms enters the Public Domain next year
Really? Oh, that's surprising.
Uh oh
Not sure using his four failed marriages as a measure of his passion and his status as a lover is a positive thing.
Ha. Well, that's true. But he was a very carnal man.
@@Bookfox that may be the single best word for him. Lol
@@Bookfox which stemmed from the fact of him being mentally ill
@@redherringoffshoot2341 Aren't we all, in a way? (Not to deny that Hemingway has been described as someone with serious issues.)
Three failed marriages - his last survived his death.
Amnesia. Yeah I had it but then I added in where he did it to himself on purpose so the reader knows the guy did it himself and the guy he is running from is ... his husband who wants him to rebel against the empire even though hubby will be mind erased if he takes one real act of rebellion.
It’s indicative of the western sense of individualism that he should assert so boldly, “one must have a strong sense of moral justice”. The best stories are those where every character (I intentionally avoid phrases like pro/antagonist) has discernible understandable motivations. No character is so boring as the one labeled ‘villain’ and wants to blow up the world s/he lives on because they’re “like totally evil or whatever”. The dubious, the grey, is compelling. Labeling one person/action as good, and another as evil is boring, it’s stories for children to impart morality, but people should grow past the simple.
Old man in the sea is a love story
Thank you!
You're welcome!
Is this a re upload?
Yes -- the last version got taken down because I had a clip of a bullfight in it.
@@Bookfox that's crazy
@@Bookfoxso glad you got it back up!
@@Bookfox I’m glad. I had only been through a few minutes and then had to stop and when I went back to finish it, it was gone 😂
@@mattfarr137 Same here. I was thoroughly annoyed with TH-cam.
Hey , thanks. Now, instead of dispair, I think I’m doing pretty good. I’m 3 yrs and 300k words into my story. In the second year I discovered I was writing a science fiction. Lady Luck showed me last week how the alien connection actually is crucial to the Main Character . This week I’m taking the week off. So happy am I.
This author shit works.
Yeah, I will be dumping a lot of words, don’t worry. And it’s based on a true person, no kidding.
Curious? Ok. An alien kid decides to come to Earth for his science fair project. He doesn’t know his councilor is using him as a probe.
More
Superb video. I'm curious, did he really say "write drunk, edit sober"?
I think that's an urban legend. Still, it's an interesting quote!
Hemingway, a functional alcoholic, notably did not write while drinking.
Write with strong nouns and strong verbs.
Leave adverbs and adjectives out.
Good stuff...
Spelling,good spelling!
In english not my favorite phrase, so far - Hemingways. Capote pleases me better. Henry Miller, Gertrud Stein? A bit dull (Ernest)?
Not only was Dostoevsky sent to a hard labour camp for four years for being a member of what was seen as a subversive literary group, but he was actually lining up to be shot by firing squad when a letter of reprieve arrived by cart from the Tsar. The 4 year sentence was what he got instead.
Yeah, I was trying to write about ancient greek hero, now I'm afraid my reader would know that I'm not genuine ancient, not genuine greek and not genuine hero
Hi Bookfox,
Thanks for the video! I have a ‘How to Write like Hemingway’ book that I still haven’t gotten to but now I feel like I don’t need to read it! 😂
I have a question about the importance of reading widely for an aspiring novelist. Is there an email we can send those kinds of questions to?
Also my husband was a student of yours at Biola and pointed me to your channel!
Oh, you married Scotty! Cool, gotta thank him for me for sending you to my channel. :)
I think reading widely is super important for an aspiring novelists. But it's also important to read the type of books you want to write. Is that what you mean?
@@Bookfox yes-well to give a little background, I applied for a Master’s in Creative Writing and made it to the final round of the interview process, but I did not get in; their biggest piece of advice to me was to read more novels so I can start to adopt the mannerisms and styles of authors I like.
I’m the type of person that has a hard time embarking on an assignment without knowing how it’s going to get me to a goal. And it just seems like if I read a novel here, a novel there, I may just flounder around not really getting closer to my ultimate goal of writing compelling fiction that others want to read.
So I guess my question is: How do I get the most out of my reading if my intention is to write a novel one day?
@@EmilyPaperNano May I suggest an answer to your question? Think of it as a three step process.
(1) Know what your flaws are. Plot? Character? Style? What exactly? You must have had feedback from people who are really good critics.
(2) Say it is plot. Now select books (either in your favorite genre, or just a different genre) that are famous for their marvelous plot. Read and study their plots: a structure, a certain number of story beats - again, pay extra attention to the things that you know where your flaws are.
(3) Now create a new plot for your story and put this in the hands of those really good critics. What do they say? Have you improved? I bet you have.
I hope this is the type of 'homework assignment' that you now know it will get you to a goal of becoming better, of learning what you have still to learn. Good luck and best wishes from another aspiring novelist (who is learning by writing short and more and more longer stories).
@@TonBil1 hey! I appreciate your answer! I think it’s helpful to think about focusing on one area I’m weak in rather than on writing as a whole when thinking about what books I want to glean wisdom from.
I agree with having a sense of justice, right and wrong. Unfortunately I don’t think that writing is particularly popular these days. We live in a fallen world. A particularly selfish and degenerate world. People seem to prefer morally Grey characters, characters that do not embrace goodness, justice, or righteousness, but rather they are all twisted, fallen, selfish, degenerate, and moral relativism seems to dominate rather than having a moral compass.🙄🙄🙄
That's why it's called literature and not religion
@ I happen to prefer characters that are admirable, with a moral code, and not dirtbag. Can’t stand pathetic gray characters in Hollywood and modern books; alcoholics, drug attic‘s, cowards, etc. No thanks.🤮
The iceberg one simply hurts me, I feel like I’m being stabbed repeatedly in fact. I can’t write lore upon lore and then edit it out! How would the readers know why this thing happens or this other thing doesn’t happen? I’m the one with the knowledge they need to learn, right? Shouldn’t I tell them all they need to know? Or should it be implied? I don’t know and it’s hurting me 😭
Write more than one book.
"Hemingway's novel always had a romantic relationship in them. Basically all of them, except The Old Man And The Sea."
Oh, you fool. Not many are aware of the secret version where the fisherman, for days under the sun, starts to become crazy and sees his misadventure as a romantic cruise between him and the hooked fish...
Good editing is a lost art.
Great video. I am a writer/published author and Hemingway is a favorite. I was inspired by his description of the aftermath on a battlefield in A Farewell To Arms in that he wrote not of the blood and gore and carnage but of the papers lying and floating about everywhere: letters home, photos of girlfriends and wives, unfinished letters meant to be finished and mailed. Much more moving than describing death and destruction
Didn't flash Gordon have a ming
So... In a broader sense, the 3 subjects Hemingway recommend are:
Politics (War)
Sociology (Love)
Economics (Money).
This is True Sentence: Learn to edit and revise yourself as I did, per Hemingway; now I am on the historical record as the "most egegriously plagiarized writer" in literature, because I was ruthlessly minimalist w/ my self-editing & style, and made no money, only a legacy.
That was a stretch of panache, but nonetheless true.
I love you.
*Marketing is everything*. Technique, style, knowledge, storytelling expertise, powerful themes, world-building, and even compelling character arcs won't mean jack sheet if you're utterly invisible. 😂🤣😂 Unfortunately, only the wealthy can win. So... be rich. If ya can't, then just become independently wealthy. 💵🇱🇷💵
🐲✨🐲✨🐲✨
"Before I start, I must see my end. Destination known, my mind's journey now begins. Upon my chariot, heart and soul's fate revealed. In time, all points converge; hope's strength, resteeled. But to earn final peace at the universe's endless refrain, we must see all in nothingness... before we start again."
🐲✨🐲✨🐲✨
--Diamond Dragons (series)
Hemingway was a legemd; he didn't become one by applying techniques.
He also had massive trauma.
Wow, it only took you 30 seconds to get to the guts of your talk. Some videos take minutes to get to their first point. Thanks.
Yeah, I hate people who purposefully delay. I got so much to say, might as well get to it!
1:50 oh the irony of making the pros PG
This is when my crap detector went off.
"Dust-westy"
hmmm... if someone had 4 different spouses during their lifetime, there's a chance they were dysfunctional in the love department...
I enjoyed this video very much but please do not use "A Movable Feast" as a source to anything Hemingway did or said.... Despite the copious notes he had for the book, the book was really written by Mary Hemingway and the editors.
WOW
Most of EH's advice is bs. Good writing is about voice. He had a good voice.
My professor said his prose is pedestrian, but I guess you could say he had voice.
I think writing "people" instead of "characters" is bad advice. People enjoy narratives because they're unrealistic. How many entertaining, nonfiction books aren't there that don't twist the truth and leave out vital information for the sake of entertaining? We don't want to read about real people, plain and simple. "Characters" are handcrafted to only contain details to give the audience emotion, and tell the author's message. They aren't meant to be real or realistic.
What if you don’t like Hemingway?
Try watching movies, maybe novels aren't your thing.
@@gdubaz This is insanely pretentious and fallacious. It's completely valid to dislike Hemmingway, but still like novels in general.
@@youcantbeatk7006 "Insanely pretentious and fallacious" . . . lemme guess, "aspiring novelist" . . . ? Wow.
@@gdubaz Fallacious is a regular part of my of my vocabulary, and no, I don't plan on writing novels.
If you don't like Hemingway, you're not alone. Hemingway never did write as well as Proust. Hemingway didn't lack words from a dictionary. Proust was more attentive and accurate than Hemingway, and wrote with greater precision and skill.
That said? Hemingway had real insight and craft. His advice is solid and his mastery of writing is self-evident. His advice will not make one less capable.
If you want another option? Try Gerald Murnane's The Plains. It's easily as lean as Old Man and the Sea. But has more literary merit, in my opinion.
Wait, “crap” is not as bad as sh!’v?
I didn’t know. Sheltered upbringing, never heard either of them. Thought they were like equal.
I've read his writing. That was plenty good for me, but good points.
HEmingway KNEW about DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND ALCHOLISM!! BUT LOVE??? I DO NOT think??
You're so wrong about old man in the sea. You couldn't be more wrong. The old man was so caught up and in love with the fish. And on many levels levels, you have to be a fisherman. I guess to understand and evidently you're not a fisherman. I'm not putting you down. I'm just saying there was definitely a love story.
Three more: use fifty times the word "and" on a page, leave out commas, and write about fish, bulls, or guns.
Brothers Kara-what? For someone who claims to know a lot about literature, I’d expect you to know how to pronounce The Brothers Karamazov correctly.
Man! Slow down, you are talking to writers. We are in this for the long game. You're giving me anxiety attacks. Yeah, you have ground breaking ideas I couldn't take 4 minutes of this video.