Thread: A Question for All

There is a theory that states: a good writer never talks about anything they are working on or anything plan to write -- for this will release the pressure and need for them to write it.

Another theory states: Writers learn from writers, and this is not limited to just reading their works. It is good for writers to talk, to share, to even critique each others works.

The first theory comes from a famous novelist, the second, from a famous screenwriter. My question is: Who is right?

I ask this, because, I enjoy talking with others and sharing my work, but I also find -- when I do -- I am less motivated to actually write.

i believe this is a double post... i replied to the other one...

I read somewhere that BIC (butt in chair) is the key to writing. I have yet to do that though.

Originally Posted by olrayt

I read somewhere that BIC (butt in chair) is the key to writing. I have yet to do that though.

Same I used to not let people read what I was writing intil I thought it was good enough but now I ask fro critics...ps olrayty nice avatar! Nar fan 4 life lol

I never even think about such things. If I want to share something I do. If I don't, I don't. I do believe it helps to stimulate my thinking though, when I do share my stuff with others who may be interested.

I've run into the first more often than I care to think about. There have been times when I've been very upbeat about a project and talked about it to the point where my excitement has diminished and thus it was never written. Ususally, it is not the mere talking about it but the hearing it out loud and realizing that what seemed like a good idea in theory in practice would not really have made a good finished product.

On the second observation, writers can learn from other writers, but learn style and technique only to a point of helping them determine what their own is to be. When one writer tries to adapt the style of another writer wholly it is often a bad omen, for they will forever be "like" that other writer in the eyes of the public and the critics. Certainly we can learn from the great writers, but when you look at what made them great it was not that they wrote like their peers or mentors but rather that they differed from them and their writing style was like none other of their time. Anyone who reads -- and writers are generally avid readers -- will pick up nuances of another writer, but it's their ability to twist, turn, and reshape those, adding a measure of their own soul and imagination, that makes that writer unique.

Since this is in the non-fiction area, I would have thought you were speaking about a work of non-fiction. I fail to see, in that arena, what would be the problem of talking about it for a variety of reasons.
Fiction, however, could lend itself to the need for keeping your mindset and emotions bottled up and dissipated only through the written word. I have grand plans of writing fiction at some point, but so far have only done so when prompted....at which time I would never want anyone reading it until it is done. Never.
Non-fiction, though, shouldn't be a problem.......