"All you have to do is write one true
sentence.
Write the truest sentence you know." -
Ernest Hemingway
It was wonderful to walk down the long flights of
stairs knowing that I'd had good luck working.
I always worked until I had
something done and I always stopped when I
knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going
on the next day. But sometimes when I was started on a new story and
I could not get going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze
the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch
the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over
the roofs of Paris and think,
"Do not worry. You have always
written before and you will write now. All you
have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you
know." So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on
from there. It was easy then because there was always one true
sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say. If I
started to write elaborately, or like someone introducing or
presenting something, I found that I could cut the scrollwork or
ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple
declarative sentence I had written. - Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable
FeastA "true" sentence, according to my writing
friend, Frank Barone:
shows instead of tells
uses sense words
uses active verbs
does not use the following forms of the verb
"to be": is; are; was; were; has, have, had been.
Some unfavorite words:
it is; there are; very; well; really; a lot;
etc.; beautiful; wonderful; great
Criteria for good writing:
true sentences
show, don't tell
strong active verbs
specific details; concrete objects; no
abstractions; sense words
