Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies

by Sol Stein

The four most common I’ve heard are “I am expressing myself”; “I have something to say”; “I want to be loved by readers”; and “I need money.”

The century I have inhabited has not seen the abandonment of war and violence. It has not solved the problem of poverty, nor has it improved human nature. However, we can credit the century with producing the public realization that sex has to be good for both partners.

That is also the key to writing both fiction and nonfiction. It has to be a good experience for both partners, the writer and the reader, and it is a source of distress to me to observe how frequently writers ignore the pleasure of their partners.

A failure to understand this difference between nonfiction and fiction is a major reason for the rejection of novels.

Over many years I have observed that the failure of story writers is often attributable to an incontrovertible fact. We are all writers from an early age. Most of what we write is nonfiction—essays for school, letters to friends, memoranda to colleagues—in which we are trying to pass on information. We are raised with a traditional nonfiction mind-set. Even when we write love letters, we are trying to communicate how we feel and not necessarily trying to evoke an emotion in the recipient, though that might be better suited to our purpose.

In previous centuries, when letter writing was more often than today a form of personal art, letters had more of an emotional effect on readers, even those to whom the writing was not addressed, as we know from reading some of the great correspondence that has been collected in books.

The novelist is like the conductor of an orchestra, his back to the audience, his face invisible, summoning the experience of music for the people he cannot see. The writer as conductor also gets to compose the music and play all of the instruments, a task less formidable than it seems.

My advice to writers yearning for publication is to minimize description, and be sure you don’t stop the story while describing. You are a storyteller, not an interior decorator.

She always stood sideways so people could see how thin she was.

Don’t ever stop your story to characterize. Avoid telling the reader what your character is like. Let the reader see your characters talking and doing things.

What great and unacknowledged actresses the women of my mother’s background were; to avoid shattering the fragile innocence of their spouses, some of them simulated not only their orgasms but their entire lives.

Through physical attributes. 2. With clothing or the manner of wearing clothing. 3. Through psychological attributes and mannerisms. 4. Through actions. 5. In dialogue.

psychotherapist tries to relieve stress, strain, and pressure. Writers are not psychotherapists. Their job is to give readers stress, strain, and pressure. The fact is that readers who hate those things in life love them in fiction.