Suggestion Is A Literary Strategy.

Good Writing Is Clear. Talented Writing Is Energetic. Good Writing Avoids Errors. Talented Writing Makes Things Happen In The Reader's Mind - -vividly, Forcefully.

The Problem Isn't To Learn To Love Humanity, But To Learn To Love Those Members Of It Who Happen To Be At Hand.

A Poet Is Wounded Into Speech, And He Examines These Wounds, Meticulously, To Discover How To Heal Them. The Bad Poet Harangues At The Pain And Yowls At The Weapons That Lacerate Him; The Great Poet Explores The Inflamed Lips Of Ruined Flesh With Ice-caked Fingers, Glittering And Precise; But Ultimately His Poem Is The Echoing, Dual Voice Reporting The Damages.

Apocalypse Has Come And Gone. We're Just Grubbing In The Ashes.

In A Very Real Way, One Writes A Story To Find Out What Happens In It. Before It Is Written It Sits In The Mind Like A Piece Of Overheard Gossip Or A Bit Of Intriguing Tattle. The Story Process Is Like Taking Up Such A Piece Of Gossip, Hunting Down The People Actually Involved, Questioning Them, Finding Out What Really Occurred, And Visiting Pertinent Locations. As With Gossip, You Can't Be Too Surprised If Important Things Turn Up That Were Left Out Of The First-heard Version Entirely; Or If Points Initially Made Much Of Turn Out To Have Been Distorted, Or Simply Not To Have Happened At All.