Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

"Some things are hard to write about. After something happens to you, you go to write it down, and either you over dramatize it, or underplay it, exaggerate the wrong parts or ignore the important ones. At any rate, you never write it quite the way you want to." —Sylvia Plath


Donald Maass reminds us that if it's not written on the page, it doesn't exist. That's important to remember when we're trying to recreate what's in our heads so that others can see what we see.

Sylvia Plath, I think, is talking about emotions. The piece between an event and a reaction. With both fiction and poetry, there are a lot of ways to get those onto the page, and right or wrong, perfectly done or not, the thing with emotions is that they're going to resonate with someone.



It's all better with friends.