3 Things I Learned About Writing: Analyzing Toni Morrison’s BELOVED
1. Use personification to set a tone. “124 was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom” (3). BELOVED has one of the most famous opening lines in literature. And what does it do? It personifies the house.
3 Things I Learned About Writing: Analyzing Nadine Gordimer’s JULY’S PEOPLE
1. Time doesn’t have to be linear.
“The knock on the door
no door, an aperture in thick mud walls, and the sack that hung over it looped back for air.” (1)
3 Things I Learned About Writing: Analyzing Claudia Rankine’s CITIZEN: AN AMERICAN LYRIC
3. Be deliberate. “Neither you nor your friend bothers to ask who is making her feel uncomfortable” (69).
3 Things I Learned About Writing: Analyzing Miguel Cervantes’ DON QUIXOTE
1. Try new things.
“All you have to do is try, with meaningful words, properly and effectively arranged, to honestly unroll your sentences and paragraphs, clearly, sensibly, just explaining what you’re up to as well and as powerfully as you can."
3 Things I Learned About Writing: Analyzing Maya Angelou’s I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS
1. Have a Theme
“If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat.
It is an unnecessary insult.”
3 Things I Learned About Writing: Analyzing Andy Weir’s THE MARTIAN
2. When writing suspense, write good comedy.
Log Entry: Sol 61
How come Aquaman can control whales? They’re mammals! Makes no sense.
3 Things I Learned About Writing: Analyzing Go Set a Watchman
3. Revise, revise, revise. And then revise again. Go Set a Watchman is the first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird. It reads like a draft. There are random flashbacks that aren’t always relevant and several information dumps.
3 Things I Learned About Writing: Analyzing Stephen King’s IT
2. Names are powerful—an absence of names is even more so. Names equal identity. If someone is named, they’re important and they’re solid.