Writing Tips from Obama before He Was President

Five tips from a future president (one who can read and write!)


 A friend sent Obama a manuscript for editing, and Obama wrote back with five tips:

 1) "Careful about too many adverbs, particularly describing how people speak (Paul asked disbelievingly, etc.).

It can be cumbersome and a bit intrusive on the reader."

 2) "Resist the temptation of easy satire. ... Good satire has to be a little muted. Should spill out from under a seemingly somber situation."

3) "Try to get the basic stats on the characters out of the way early {Paul was 24} so that you can spend the rest of the story revealing character."

4) "Think about the key moment(s) in the story, and build tension leading to those key moments."

5) "Write outside your own experience. ... I find that this works the fictive imagination harder."

Carl Hiaasen Interview Part Two

Carl Hiassen Florida writer

I've discovered the writer Carl Hiassen. He's so smart, cool, cute, responsible... He's written a ton of novels set in Florida with wacky characters, young people's books too. He also still works as a journalist on a newspaper in Florida, I forget where. The books are funny, and bad things happen to bad (mean and nasty) people (who are somehow likeable anyway, but stupid), like their hands get eaten off by sharks or crabs in the everglades.