Category: writing
-
On Bias, Rhetoric, and Cognitive Dissonance
Author of The New York Times’ Consumed column, Rob Walker, dissects a Weekly Standard article discussing the first presidential debate between Obama and McCain to answer the question: what’s the difference between rhetoric and cognitive dissonance? Both can result in points of view that are so biased that they have no connection to reality. But…
-
Reverse Dictionary
Know the concept but just can’t find the word—or similar words—for it? A thesaurus is no use. A dictionary’s just torture. Help is here in the form of the reverse dictionary; I’ve got a feeling this is going to come in handy quite often.
-
The Shutdown of MathWorld and the Fall of Publishing
MathWorld—a division of Wolfram Research, the creators of Mathematica—was temporarily shutdown in late 2000 due to a copyright dispute over a book based on the website. Eric Weisstein’s commentary on the shutdown reveals a lot not just about being on the receiving side of an unfounded lawsuit, but also about publishing and its apparent change…
-
Seth Godin’s Author Advice
As the author of a number of influential marketing books, Seth Godin knows what he’s talking about when it comes to writing and marketing a book. Advice for authors is a list of his top 19 tips. Lower your expectations. The happiest authors are the ones that don’t expect much. The best time to start…
-
Secrets of Book Publishing
The author of Bit Literacy (one of the Startup Bibles) on the secrets of book publishing that they wish they had known: The publishers are not doing it for the love of books; they want something that sells. If your book will sell, it doesn’t matter what you’re writing about. Your main job – practically…
-
Common Errors in English
Mixed-up, mangled expressions; foreign-language faux pas; confused and confusing terms; commonly mispronounced words – they’re all explained in Common Errors in English by Paul Brians. The concept of language errors is a fuzzy one. I’ll leave to linguists the technical definitions. Here we’re concerned only with deviations from the standard use of English as judged…
-
Kurt Vonnegut: Advice to Writers
Author of Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut, offers us advice on How to Write With Style: Find a subject you care about Do not ramble, though Keep it simple Have guts to cut Sound like yourself Say what you mean Pity the readers
-
Writing a Novel – The Snowflake Method
I’ve started writing a novel. I don’t have ideas of grandeur or dreams of retiring from novel royalties; I write because I enjoy doing so and because I find it therapeutic. Still, it’s nice to produce legible prose and to do so requires at least a bit of forethought.That’s where The Snowflake Method comes into…