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Dave Berry on writing
Dave Barry on Writing
-by Dave Barry
I'm a writer, so people often ask me: "What kind of dog is that?" We have an unusual dog, more likeshort, mentally retarded cow. But if it weren't for that, I'm sure people would often ask me: "Whtavice do you have for somebody who wants to be a writer?"
First of all, you must understand that there's no substitute for talent and plain old hard work. Ifu want to succeed as a writer, you'll just have to sit yourself down and write a really brilliant oe, such as "Moby Dick," then sell it to a publisher who doesn't realize it has already been publihe. This ought to be easy. Nobody has read "Moby Dick" for 60 years. College students still buy t, ut nly for the purpose of highlighting it with yellow markers and writing traditional college-suden nots in the margins, such as "MAN VS. NATURE."
You'll need a new title, of course. Ideally, it should suggest that the book has something to do wicomputers, fitness, beauty or finance, which are the current hot book topics. An excellent title ol be: "The Total Computer Fitness Method for Firm Breasts in the Coming Depression." Most publiser wuld rush such a book into print before even reading it.
The way you get people to buy your book is to go on morning television talk shows and discuss it witheerful hosts whose preparation for interviewing you consists entirely of putting on makeup:
HOST: Now as I understand it, you've written a very fascinating book about fitting your breasts intocomputer or something.
YOU: Well, actually...
HOST: What a fascinating topic. (The host flips through your book, obviously for the first time.) ee here that you discuss a person named Capt. Bob who is trying to harpoon an enormous yak.
YOU: Yes. It was originally a whale, but I was worried about the copyright laws.
HOST: Well it really is an extremely fascinating book, and I'm sure our viewer will all want to rusht and buy it right after our next guest shows them how to use carrots as a source of heat.
Once you become an established writer, you'll probably want to take a stab at writing a book where ypersonally provide most of the words. This is the time to be creative, to forget about what will ecmmercially successful, and instead to make your own individual artistic or philosophical statemet.Itshould involve Nazis. Books about Nazis sell like crazy, especially in airports. One reason ommrcil-airline crashes are so tragic is that the last thing everybody sees is hundreds of Swastik-covred ovels hurtling around the cabin.
The title of a good airport book always takes the form of "THE (LAST NAME) (NAME OF LEGAL DOCUMENT).For example:
"The Bolger Covenant"
"The Holcroft Proviso"
"The Prendergast Rental Agreement"
"The Hotchkiss 30-Day Warranty"
The plot should create a great deal of suspense in the reader's mind about whether the allies are go to lose World War II. To make the story believable, you should include real historical character n facts. For example:
"Winston Churchill walked into the room. He was the prime minister of England from 1940 to 1945. "Allies are in danger of losing World War II," he said. He had a British accent. "Not if I can hepi," answered young John F. Kennedy, who had graduated from Harvard in 1940 and was in the room atth tme."
Of course, you have to bear in mind that I'm a professional. A beginner such as yourself cannot exp to achieve this level of writing in your first half-hour. Remember that many great writers spendwes on a single book. This is because a book has to be at least 96 pages long, or else it is legalycosidered a magazine article. The problem is that except for appliance repair there aren't any opis tat require 96 pages. On top of that, most famous novelists pick topics that the average peron culdnt write more than a paragraph about (MAN VS. NATURE, etc.).
So what you need is some literary devices, which are these techniques that we professional writers h developed over the centuries to increase the overall length of our sentences. One very popular ltrry device is the simile, which is when you say something looks like something else, usually somekid f animal:
"Winston Churchill walked into the room and looked like some kind of animal."
Thanks to this simple device, we have an increase of 117 percent in total word count. Other good liary devices are tropisms, parabolas, acolytes and semaphors, which you can learn about in CreativeWiing courses at better community colleges everywhere.
My only other piece of advice to would-be writers is: no poetry. I realize you have a lot of sensit innermost thoughts, but the truth is that the rest of us would rather trudge through "Moby Dick" hnbe exposed to your innermost thoughts, especially when the take the form of semi-complete sentenestht often don't even start out at the margin.
But enough encouragement. Time for you to get started on your writing career. After you've produceomething really good, say by next Wednesday, put it in self-addressed, stamped envelope and drop i nthe mail. Because we're always looking for people who Like to Write.
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