Ray Bradbury on the Dangers of Starting with a Novel

[@SyeedAli]

Name-dropping for short story authors: 3:40 - Guy de Maupassant - John Cheever - Richard Matheson - Nigel Kneale - John Collier 4:40 - Katherine Anne Porter - Eudora Welty 5:15 - Washington Irving - Herman Melville - Edgar Allan Poe - Nathaniel Hawthorne Poetry: 6:55 - William Shakespeare - Alexander Pope - Robert Frost Essays: 7:25 - Aldous Huxley - Loren Eiseley

[@mister2012idley]

Thanks

[@GeoffLichy]

To add to this: some of these authors have works available for FREE on Project Gutenberg. They've passed into the public domain. Links: Guy de Maupassant www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3090 Washington Irving www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/34 Herman Melville www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/9 Edgar Allan Poe www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/481 Nathaniel Hawthorne www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/28 William Shakespeare www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/65 Alexander Pope www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/907 Robert Frost www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1091

[@Arsenal.N.I7242]

3:35 Roald Dahl

[@JRMRLP18]

I think you missed Roald Dahl, he mentions him first before Guy de Maupassant.

[@alexanderboukal5332]

Thank you. Needed a list of their names.

[@leet47]

"I defy you to write 52 bad ones." Hold my beer.

[@marcbrutschy7566]

Really? No one has even mentioned W. Somerset Maugham. Amazing.

[@97epicman]

Marc Brutschy Maugham seems quite scarcely known outside of Britain. He’s very popular where I live in England, but I never hear people from abroad mention him (excepting maybe Stephen King who seems to be a huge fan of him).

[@97epicman]

Yeah I’ve unfortunately written a lot more than 52 bad ones

[@loydjenkins2241]

😂😂😂

[@ijzerkoekie]

You're off to a good start!

[@hi3694]

Really terrific advice. There's too many "yes men" around novel-writing who I think cause outlandish expectations in first-time novelists. Disclaimer: I'm a failed-but-recovering novelist, now a proud short story addict.

[@angusorvid8840]

One reason so many new writers produce bad novels is because they've never even written a short story. They go headfirst into novel writing. It's so obvious that they have no organized thoughts. To write a short story and do it well is to write with discipline and focus. In a novel there's a lot of room for error. Readers are forgiving of some very big errors in a novel. Think about it. You read a 1000-page doorstopper and you come across all sorts of problems in continuity, syntax, grammar, but you don't notice them, or don't focus on them. You're too swept up in the momentum and depth of this great, big epic. With short fiction you can't get away with mistakes, because a reader can see from horizon to horizon. With a novel, we're talking about the curvature of the earth. You won't see Shangri La till you arrive.

[@hi3694]

@@angusorvid8840 Well said!

[@MiguelExhale]

Going to have to listen again and take notes.

[@lotusflower8]

"I'M WRITING A BOOK!", screamed a friend on Facebook recently. The responses sparkled, "That's great!" "How wonderful!" "Fantastic!" The first words that popped into my head, which I wrote, were, "My condolences." 😉

[@MST3Killa]

Ray is an ambassador for the craft and artistry. His enthusiasm is infectious, as is his sheer love.

[@cerveza2297]

I've been doing this since March. Noone will ever see them, but it's therapeutic.

[@MilesWilliams88]

Never say never... keep it up, and someone might see them someday. 🍻

[@tombradford7035]

Love this man RIP Ray

[@donovanmaxwell]

I needed to hear this today. What an encouraging and uplifting piece of audio! So glad to have found this!

[@r.i.p.4485]

Lol, so weird because I've started writing short stories two weeks ago and it is amazing the focus I have acquired so far.

[@bennykwong3172]

Met Ray at book signing in college. He's a very caring man and love humanity.

[@jackbuckley7816]

I'd certainly include W. Somerset Maugham, no longer a household name but once acclaimed in the long-ago as one of the finest short-story writers in the English-speaking world. Such elegance & marvelous storytelling!

[@chantalryan1294]

Thank you for sharing this!

[@geminiwriter8875]

Exactly what I’m doing.

[@GladysHunnam]

"Stay away from most modern poems, it's crap. It's not poetry." Love Bradbury's sincerity 😆 Oh, I've tried reading modern poetry also. No comments.

[@josephiscancelled2732]

Which modern poets did you read?

[@GladysHunnam]

"Stay away from most modern anthologies of short stories, because they're slices of life, uh? They don't go anywhere, they don't have any methaphor. [...] Didn't they put you to sleep immediately, uh? They don't know how to write short stories." Yeah, I've tried, and they did put me to sleep, and also got angry because they were bad. So I agree with Mr. Bradbury.

[@redmed10]

Such great advice. You wouldn't try to run a marathon without some training. Or at least run it well. Similarly don't write a biography until you've lived a bit of a life.

[@JonathanBrough-wg7ji]

What a lovely message. Best advice!

[@christoroppolo8742]

Wow! The sincerity of this man is truly insightful and by the way mr Bradbury I was very close to uncle Fory who is featured in my new film "Curse of the man who sees Ufos " and if you would like to see real alien Craft I welcome you to come to Monterey calif and see formations of ufos with your own eyes (not drones or balloons) thank you so much Mr Bradbury! Much much love Peace Christo ✌️👽

[@ConstantGardener-q9q]

Thank you so much!!!

[@angusorvid8840]

You learn economy by writing short stories. Once you have it down, you can move up to novels. I bounce back and forth between short stories and novellas. When you write a novel, keep in mind, this is a thing you will be living with for a while. You don't want it to be an endless slog. If you don't enjoy the creative process, why should a reader enjoy the end product?

[@bigphilly7345]

Gotta love Bradbury. And I love how he took a swipe at the New Yorker (pretentious bullshit).

[@natalya6091]

Good evening.Thank you for posting.We've already read two novels: "Tyrannosaurus Rex" and "The Pedestrian".We've really enjoyed them!Greetings from Moscow, Russia.🇷🇺

[@ZemplinTemplar]

I prefer short stories, novellas and anthologies. It's hard to write an actually good novel.

[@aaronaragon7838]

If you finally dare to write your novel, stop at 80k words. Only the Russians can handle the unwieldy mass of life that is the novel. The English wrote in serial form for newspapers which is why the English novel suffers from bloat.

[@APDS-Akin]

Wondering what Bradbury (or other prose writers) would say to someone who say has spent +~a decade writing mainly 'non-fiction' in terms of journalling but almost never short stories

[@97epicman]

I think that they would say you have a head start, but fiction is a very different skill. You still need to learn how to use techniques exclusive to fiction writing!

[@charlespeterson3798]

Loren Eiseley. Blast from the past. My dad gave me The Enormous Journey when I was 10 years old. I understood almost nothing,except the magic of his prose.

[@The_Mighty_Fiction]

The Immense Journey? Not being a smartass, i just tried to look it up.

[@wallacelovecraft8942]

I feel like I heard this before. Or he told it the exact same way.

[@b.c.7741]

This was just what I needed to hear!

[@mish8753]

This is great advice and he's clearly very knowledgeable and passionate about this field but i will say, im only 16 so I have a lot to learn obviously but so far I have not followed this advice funny enough and I'm happy with my novel so far, maybe I'll understand this eventually lmao, much respect to Ray Bradbury but I've been told by my friends that I'm naturally very creative already so I don't think I'll follow this

[@CMON75]

I'd take a look at the list of successful 16-year-old novelists for a reality check. Best of luck with your writing.

[@craneoazul9873]

This is gold

[@figsandtime4890]

[@screggybojanklin3567]

"Don't read anything modern. Only read classics." = A sweet and inspiring way to say "Get off my lawn!"

[@skiphoffenflaven8004]

And yet today, teens and twenty-/thirty-somethings think the world will end if they can’t achieve it in a few months OR they post everything they’ve done the day they started doing it, at the least, or a few months later, at the most.

[@christopherpaul7588]

It's too bad he never read Jorge Luis Borges. That would have been the first name on his list. Best short story writer of all time.

[@obowurx6625]

Christopher Paul How do we know he didn’t read Borges? I’m not being a smart ass, genuinely curious. Borges was pretty prolific while Bradbury was alive yeah?

[@BillysKingdom]

Any recommendations for a good place to start with him?

[@christopherpaul7588]

@@obowurx6625 Because like I said in the comment Borges was a brilliant short story writer and if Bradbury had read him, I'm sure he would have put Borges toward the top of his list.

[@obowurx6625]

Christopher Paul Highly unlikely Bradbury never came across Borges. What’s more likely is that he’s read Borges and he didn’t put him on his list.

[@nicholasvargo9251]

I appreciate the view of accomplishing something every week, but isn't the only way to learn how to "do" something "doing" it? For example, to train for a race, let's say a 5k, not only do you train by running five kilometers frequently, but you even run longer distances than that to accustom your body to extended distances. It's along the lines of practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect. Regardless, great talk by a great writer.

[@niminime2030]

Do you start with a marathon or do you run for 5 minutes and go from there? Should children who learn to write begin with a novel?

[@SyeedAli]

A year late.. but .. no, you don't _only_ learn things by doing them. There is a hell of a lot to be said for getting good advice, and even for having a dictated regimen. Your running example is one of them.. a runner can wing it, but they will have be much better when they're taught how to tie their shoes properly (and I'm being literal). Continuing.. knowing how to breathe, how to exercise, how to effectively stretch, how to recovery from injury.. all of that can be _taught_. No, you do not just learn to write by "just doing it".. that's just an inevitability. There must also be learning.

[@97epicman]

You don’t learn to run a marathon by running a marathon. You run lots of smaller distances until you’re ready to run a marathon. That’s when you start running the marathons.

[@gsimon123]

Well you occasionally have a child savant who can compose great music at an early age. However, 99.9% of kids don't, without any training whatsoever, start rocking out Rachmaninov's 3rd on piano. You learn Twinkle Twinkle first. Ray is super clear that SOME people can jump in head first into something and stick the landing and that THOSE people can ignore his advice. He's talking to the 99.9% of people that can't solve algebra problems before they've learned to add 2 + 2.

[@LovelyDay11]

Nicholas Vargo You’ll try a few 1k’s and 2k’s in training ( short stories ) first to end up running the 5k marathon ( novel ).

[@vilstef6988]

Chuck Jones said every artist has a million bad drawings in them.