Nicolas Cole argues great writers consciously manipulate techniques like sentence length, punctuation, and repetition to shape tension and voice. Most writers just put words on a page. Literary writers cycle through these mechanisms deliberately, a practice rare in straightforward ghostwriting and non-fiction.
What is the separation between, like, everyday person, very average writer, and Pulitzer Prize-winning literary writer? The difference essentially comes down to consciousness of mechanisms. One writer is like, "I'm just writing. I'm, like, writing words on a page." The most proficient writers, what they're doing is they're cycling between hundreds of different mechanisms in their head. They're like, "Okay, in this next paragraph I want to increase tension. How do I increase tension? Mechanism: long sentence, lots of commas, repetition. I am creating a voice for that specific moment in that specific paragraph. And then the next paragraph they want a different feeling, so they use a different mechanism. But like the vast majority of writing, you don't have to worry about that. This type of stuff doesn't really exist in like your average non-fiction book. This type of stuff doesn't really exist in like the vast majority of content. These types of mechanisms like very rarely you see when you're ghostwriting pieces for clients.
What Every Writer Gets Wrong About Their Audience #writing #creator #writingtips
