“One of the reasons so many nonfiction books are so boring is because what they've done, very diligently, is fulfill the terms of their proposals. They've written up their proposal, long-form, and often what this does is then set up a sort of serial deal, where the whole book can essentially be reduced back to the size of the original proposal!” LongDoeBookReasonDoneWholeFormTermDealsWrittenOriginalsSizeBoringNonfictionProposalSerialsSo Boring Author:Geoff Dyer
“The perfect life, the perfect lie, I realised after Christmas, is one which prevents you from doing that which you would ideally have done (painted, say, or written unpublishable poetry) but which, in fact, you have no wish to do. People need to feel that they have been thwarted by circumstances from pursuing the life which, had they led it, they would not have wanted; whereas the life they really want is precisely a compound of all those thwarting circumstances.” PeopleWantNeedsFeelsHas BeensDoneFactsWantedLyingWishPerfectWrittenCircumstancesRealisedCompoundsPerfect Life Book:Out of Sheer Rage: In the Shadow of D. H. Lawrence Source: Out of Sheer Rage: In the Shadow of D. H. Lawrence
“Beware of clichés. Not just the clichés that Martin Amis is at war with. There are clichés of response as well as expression. There are clichés of observation and of thought - even of conception. Many novels, even quite a few adequately written ones, are clichés of form which conform to clichés of expectation.” WritingWellsWarFormNovelWrittenExpressionExpectationsResponseObservationConceptionConform Author:Geoff Dyer
