Farnam Street
Mastering the best of what other people have already figured out
Why write an essay when you can type a few words and have AI generate one for you? Why write an email when AI can auto-respond for you with all the typical pleasantries and talking-points? While AI doing these things for you is likely to …
Umberto Eco (1932–2016) was one of the bestselling authors of all time. In Confessions of a Young Novelist, he shares some unique advice for writing fiction. Umberto Eco wrote Confessions of a Young Novelist in his late seventies. But …
Innovation doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Doers and thinkers from Shakespeare to Jobs, liberally “stole” inspiration from the doers and thinkers who came before. Here’s how to do it right. *** “If I have seen further,” Isaac Newton wrote in a …
“Books are never finished.They are merely abandoned.” — Oscar Wilde *** Why do great writers write? The question will never be answered only explored — in the context of culture, time, and ourselves. This is exactly …
When we know a lot about a topic, it can be difficult to write about it in a way that makes sense to the layperson. To improve writing, Cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker suggests several strategies: Let’s dive in. Pinker is known …
David Foster Wallace remains both loved and hated. His wisdom shows itself in argumentative writing, ambition, and perfectionism, and perhaps one of the best, most profound, commencement addresses ever. He’s revered, in part, because …
In December 2004, Bryan A. Garner, who had already struck up a friendship with David Foster Wallace, started interviewing state and federal judges as well as a few key writers. With over a hundred interviews under his belt by January 2006, …
In response to Ernest Hemingway on Writing a reader passed along a pointer to Advice to Writers, “a compendium of quotes, anecdotes, and writerly wisdom from a dazzling array of literary lights.” Jon Winokur, author of the bestselling The …
Ernest Hemingway is widely regarded as one of the great writers. His 1954 Nobel acceptance speech on working alone, is one of the keys to his genius. Being alone gives you the space and freedom for “combinatory play.” To continue my look at …
A voracious reader and best-selling author emailed me shortly after my post Anne Lamott: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. He proceeded to tell me the book was full of terrible advice, the self-help equivalent of “follow your …
I’m a big David Foster Wallace fan. His 2005 commencement speech will go down as one of the best ever. If you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently … You get to decide what has meaning and …
I stumbled across Anne Lamott’s beautiful Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Lamott’s advice is down to earth, real, and void of any pretentiousness. In fact, it’s one of the best books I’ve ever …
“Human beings master the basics of storytelling as young children and retain this capability throughout their lives.” — Stephen Denning When psychologist T. A. Harley researched the academic literature on the structure of stories, he …
Elmore Leonard, crime-fiction writer, died on August 20th at the age of 87. In July 2001, Leonard wrote a short piece for The New York Times on his ten rules for writing that was eventually adapted into a book: Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of …
Be careful if you ask Ernest Hemingway for his opinion. F. Scott Fitzgerald once asked Hemingway for an honest opinion on his book. Hemingway responded “You see well enough. But you stop listening.” While Hemingway never wrote a book on the …
In 1982, the original “Mad Man” David Ogilvy, sent the following internal memo to all employees of his advertising agency, Ogilvy & Mather, titled “How to Write.” Via The Unpublished David Ogilvy: A Selection of His Writings …
In his book, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, Mason Currey explores Philip Roth. Roth is full of insight. His comments on writing, taken from Reporting: Writings from The New Yorker, stuck with me. “Writing isn’t hard work, …
Mason Currey’s recently published Daily Rituals: How Artists Work mentioned the routines, quirks, and rituals of plenty of creative minds—novelists, painters, poets, philosophers, filmmakers, and scientists—but he missed one of my …
In his book, Daily Rituals, Mason Currey dug into Hemmingway’s 1958 Paris Review interview: When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is …
For most people a metaphor is a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary language. “For this reason,” write Mark Johnson and George Lakoff in their book Metaphors We Live By, “most people think they can get along perfectly well without …
Kurt Vonnegut on writing with style. Why should you examine your writing style with the idea of improving it? Do so as a mark of respect for your readers, whatever you’re writing. If you scribble your thoughts any which way, your …
Last year, literary critic Joseph Epstein wrote The best book on the art of writing that I know is F. L. Lucas’ Style: The Art of Writing Well. At the time of Epstein’s comments, the book was long out of print and selling for a …