Black Ink: Literary Legends on the Peril, Power, and Pleasure of Reading and Writing
Stephanie Stokes Oliveramazon.com
Black Ink: Literary Legends on the Peril, Power, and Pleasure of Reading and Writing
Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.
Stephanie Stokes Oliver • Black Ink: Literary Legends on the Peril, Power, and Pleasure of Reading and Writing
Rule No. 7: Writer’s block is a tool—use it.
Stephanie Stokes Oliver • Black Ink: Literary Legends on the Peril, Power, and Pleasure of Reading and Writing
Rule No. 10: Revise, revise, revise. I cannot stress this enough. Revision is when you do what you should have done the first time, but didn’t.
Stephanie Stokes Oliver • Black Ink: Literary Legends on the Peril, Power, and Pleasure of Reading and Writing
Therefore the crucial distinction for me is not the difference between fact and fiction, but the distinction between fact and truth. Because facts can exist without human intelligence, but truth cannot.
Stephanie Stokes Oliver • Black Ink: Literary Legends on the Peril, Power, and Pleasure of Reading and Writing
Italo Calvino once remarked, “A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.”
Stephanie Stokes Oliver • Black Ink: Literary Legends on the Peril, Power, and Pleasure of Reading and Writing
Rule No. 11: There are no rules.
Stephanie Stokes Oliver • Black Ink: Literary Legends on the Peril, Power, and Pleasure of Reading and Writing
The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.
Stephanie Stokes Oliver • Black Ink: Literary Legends on the Peril, Power, and Pleasure of Reading and Writing
Rule No. 4: Never use three words when one will do. Be concise.
Stephanie Stokes Oliver • Black Ink: Literary Legends on the Peril, Power, and Pleasure of Reading and Writing
Rule No. 1: Show and Tell. Most people say, “Show, don’t tell,” but I stand by Show and Tell, because when writers put their work out into the world, they’re like kids bringing their broken unicorns and chewed-up teddy bears into class in the sad hope that someone else will love them as much as they do.