Write Like Hemingway

[Hunter]

Have any of you used Write Like Hemingway.

 

It suggests using it with The Complete Short Stories of Hemingway. Are there any good study guides for the short stories? I'm told the short stories are the best examples of his writing, rather than the novels?

 

I understand many here don't like Hemingway's world view and neither do I, but I appreciate the man's minimalist style of writing and would like to combine it with Writing Tools http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=78&aid=103943 and Ben Franklin's technique of studying good writers.

[Hunter]

I bought and started reading the short stories. The 2 stories he wrote for children are pretty strange :-0

[Rhea]

Hunter, where can I find info on Write Like Hemmingway? Thanks!

[Hoggirl]

Have any of you used Write Like Hemingway.

 

It suggests using it with The Complete Short Stories of Hemingway. Are there any good study guides for the short stories? I'm told the short stories are the best examples of his writing, rather than the novels?

 

I understand many here don't like Hemingway's world view and neither do I, but I appreciate the man's minimalist style of writing and would like to combine it with Writing Tools http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=78&aid=103943 and Ben Franklin's technique of studying good writers.

 

we did an assignment last year where ds wrote a paragraph "Dickens" style and then another paragraph on the same topic "Hemingway" style. Wish I could take credit for thinking of it. It came from Omnibus III. It is a good way to demonstrate wordiness. ;)

[Hunter]

I got mine at Borders, using a 33% off coupon. Here is a link to Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Write-Like-Hemingway-Writing-Lessons/dp/1598698966/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282601748&sr=8-2

 

The first chapter is a lot of biography, but after that there are a lot of exercises. I don't understand why the 1 star review says the writing tips are rare :-0

[Rhea]

Thanks, Hunter, I'll go check it out.

 

I pulled out Writing Tools after reading your post. I'd bought a couple years ago for myself and forgotten how much I like it. Do you have a plan for using it? I'm thinking I might add one Tool per week to my daughter's writing instruction.

 

And if you don't mind one more question...

 

Where could I find information on Ben Franklin's method of studying good writers?

 

Thanks!

Rhea

[Mrs Mungo]

How to write like Hemingway: do the IEW course and then do everything opposite. :D

[Hunter]

From Ben Franklin's biography

 

About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spectator. It was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With this view I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, try'd to compleat the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should come to hand. Then I compared my Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in recollecting and using them, which I thought I should have acquired before that time if I had gone on making verses; since the continual occasion for words of the same import, but of different length, to suit the measure, or of different sound for the rhyme, would have laid me under a constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make me master of it. Therefore I took some of the tales and turned them into verse; and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again. I also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavored to reduce them into the best order, before I began to form the full sentences and compleat the paper. This was to teach me method in the arrangement of thoughts. By comparing my work afterwards with the original, I discovered many faults and amended them; but I sometimes had the pleasure of fancying that, in certain particulars of small import, I had been lucky enough to improve the method or the language, and this encouraged me to think I might possibly in time come to be a tolerable English writer, of which I was extremely ambitious.

 

Yes, I study one writing tool each week. It seems to be working well. I'm amazed how things in my life, come up that allow me to apply the lesson. Things that are not even about writing. Like the chapter on passive voice. Because of my lack of faith issues, I was able to apply the idea to prayer, by changing the focus to the recipient, rather than the deity.

 

Mrs Mungo, you are funny :-)

[Hunter]

As I'm working through "Write Like Hemingway" and "Writing Tools" I'm finding that I don't think I need to worry so much about improving my vocabulary and mastering "correct" punctuation.

 

I don't think minimalist writing is the ONLY way...but it sure is a simpler and cheaper way to learn/teach writing :-0

 

Not only is it advocating less is more in the final product...but if I read between the lines...it seems like I can apply less is more to writing instruction too.

 

I'm really interested in any input from others who have embraced or discarded minimalism in writing.