risx
asked
David Wong:
Sorry if this has been asked before but, how did you craft your writing style? Does it just come naturally or does it take a lot of revision, was there anything that inspired it? I remember stumbling on a cracked article you wrote and falling in love with how you write, which obviously lead me to your books.
David Wong
To pick just one aspect, I grew up in the word processor era, so the concept of endless rewriting/editing being super easy was there from the start (where writing with a typewriter is more straight through, then marking changes and doing it straight through again). There are paragraphs in my books that have been rewritten 50 times, there are scenes that have been moved, cut, put back, moved, then moved again. A work-in-progress looks like a somewhat coherent string of text and then a bunch of pasted in lines/conversations/scenes that I've just moved out of the way knowing I want them in later. I write scenes out of order, I jump around and do whatever part I feel like messing with that day. All of that is due to technology that makes the writing process far more fluid and malleable. The dense comedy style you saw in the early 2000s that taught me was also born from that - every sentence is a punchline, because the writer can just keep punching it up over and over until they're satisfied. It just changes how your brain thinks of text.
There were a bunch of other elements at play but that's one that rarely gets discussed so here you go!
There were a bunch of other elements at play but that's one that rarely gets discussed so here you go!
More Answered Questions
John J Questore
asked
David Wong:
I'd venture to say that most, if not all, writers are voracious readers as well. It sort of goes with the territory. If you aren't of the King, Barker, Woo, Patterson, etc. fame, how do you balance the love of reading with the need to write - and still have to have a 40+ hour a week job to pay the bills and be a family man? There just isn't enough time in the day. How did you do it?
BENTON
asked
David Wong:
David, this is unrelated to your books, but it's been haunting me for years. Back in the forever ago days of PWOT there was a fake "leaked" script of Lord of the Rings the two towers (or return if they king, I can't remember). I don't remember who wrote it but do you have any clue where I could find it?
David Wong
5,714 followers
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