John Steinbeck was an American author. He was born on 27 February 1902 and died on 20 December 1968.
Before he became a successful author, he supported himself as a manual laborer. This gave his writing about the plights of migrant laborers a ring of authenticity. His writing style was realistic and empathetic which made his characters relatable. He stood up for the disenfranchised, making his themes universal.
He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Grapes of Wrath, as well as East of Eden, and the novella, Of Mice and Men. The Grapes of Wrath also won a National Book Award and was made into a film in 1940. He wrote 27 books and five collections of short stories in his lifetime.
Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.
His six writing tips
Here are six things you can learn from John Steinbeck—Pulitzer Prize-winner, Nobel laureate, love guru, with tips on writing. They are part of an interview it the Fall 1975 issue of The Paris Review. They were later included in Steinbeck: A Life in Letters.
1. Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.
2. Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.
3. Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death. And in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn’t exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one real person you know. Or an imagined person and write to that one.
Scenes and Dialogues
4. If a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it, bypass it and go on. When you have finished the whole work, you can come back to it. You may find that the reason it gave you trouble is because it didn’t belong there.
5. Beware of a scene that becomes too dear to you, dearer than the rest. It will usually be found that it is out of drawing.
6. If you are using dialogue, say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.
Source: theatlantic.com©; writerswrite.co.za©
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