Hemingway's Four Amazing Rules for Writing
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- Опубликовано: 31 май 2024
- VelocityWriting.com - Ernest Hemingway ultimately shot himself. While he lived he was probably the greatest author in the 20th century.
He had 4 BIG rules for writing and I share them here along with my own commentary.
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Hemingway's famous 1940 novel is, "For Whom the Bell Tolls." Please excuse the slip of the lip in this video.
You're forgiven.
It's a reference to a John Donne poem.
An innocent parapraxis. I survived.
You scared me!
Inoticed that one. Interestingly, in Spanish the title was shifted to "Por quién doblan las campanas" (For Whom the Bells Toll). Not that I would read Hemingway in Spanish (or any Spanish-language writer in English, for that matter).
My favourite literary joke:
"Why did the chicken cross the road?"
"To die. Alone. In the rain."
- Ernest Hemingway
Was that on a dark and stormy night? lol
Q: Why did the chicken cross the road? A: Because the road had made the chicken cross first. Getting even y'see.
This is hilarious. I feel like it sums up all his work.
On a dark. Stormy. Night.
This is a great challenge! Like a koan, I'll cling to it until I'm weary, unsure that the answer will...Papa you fox!
"The highest form of architecture is the building of a sentence." ~ CHARLES F. HAANEL
King Master Supreme - Damn!
that\s s really good saying. Thank you for it...
Lol any architect will tell you that’s a lie
@@Cherem777 cute saying, yes. My rule of thumb: don’t read poetry written by engineers and don’t walk across bridges designed by poets.
In a college English class, best thing I ever learned was, when writing, go ahead and write your paper, and then go back and cross out any words that are not necessary. Seems simple and kind of silly. I used that for years, in anything I wrote and MAN what a help. Best thing I ever learned in college (and.I was a math major). FYI: Hemingway would not have approved of my first sentence in this comment.
Great tip!
Should have applied it to this comment lol.
Thanks for the tip.
@@maskednil #Truth!
"I learned, write your paper, then cross out unnecessary words." There ya go! It is true.
@@tropicaldoodad somehow this feels clinical and dry compared to his version
Don't forget to break every one of these rules when you must.
I'd say you have made an important comment, Don. Hemingway broke the stodgy 19th century writing rules, and it helped him achieve fame and fortune in the 20th century. We should all be learning from the greats like Hemingway, but we should not be afraid to break rules when we must.
In my experience, immature writers break the rules just because they can. They think they are so radical. Sadly, they end up as poor communicators. On the other hand, mature writers know when to break the rules and why they are doing it. We should all be breaking the rules when we must.
Hemingway deserves to be read along with many other writers with different styles. Not every writer needs to conform to Hemingway.
@@VelocityWriting You are a kind and gracious soul.
"Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist." Though said by Pablo Picasso it applies to all art forms.
@@happylittletrees5668 I think this has been said by every major figure of any art form lol
I must add, as child living in Cuba, I met the original Old Man Of The Sea. All school children visited his , Finca De Hemingway. I did not know what impact meeting this man would make later on. Thank you for your Channel..
Thanks for sharing!
I don't know how I stumbled upon this. I do know however that this was made with care and expertise in order to instruct and encourage writers everywhere. Thank you
What Hemingway is doing is giving the tips to create a punchy, impactful style of writing, like his own. It is just one style though. His 'rules' create a particular texture and ethos to a story which matched his themes and content. Other writers may wish to create a different texture and ethos to match their own content and preoccupations.
Thank you for your intelligent analysis and application. I have said this many times. You said it better.
Rule #5: Know when to stop editing. In my quest for lean prose, I once starved a story by gradually removing salient details with each pass. The problem was I knew the characters and situations so well after multiple drafts that I unconsciously assumed the reader would be similarly familiar. It was like putting a fresh pencil in a sharpener and grinding until just a nub, thereby missing the point.
You make a good point which is often overlooked.
Great point. I totally agree.
Rule 5: write drunk, edit sober.
Rule 6: marry a wife who can correct your bad spelling and poor punctuation.
Ha! We can all add our own rules. One of my personal rules is to fact-check. For example, "the write drunk, edit sober" thing is part of lore and not accurate. Ernest Hemingway put to rest rumors about the role of alcohol in his writing. He said, "My training was never to drink after dinner nor before I wrote nor while I was writing."
Of course, we all probably know from experience we can't edit when we are under the influence of anything. Cognitive brain function is severely diminished.
A spouse of friend correcting your work? Hmm. I discuss that in this video: ruclips.net/video/0khZSkKcIPI/видео.html
I'm married to a girl named Grammarly.
@@subscribe_to_bimble damn
I really liked the positive versus negative point, as I've never heard it before.
'The Boy in the Bubble' by Paul Simon is strikingly Hemingway in the opening lyric:
"It was a slow day
And the sun was beating
On the soldiers by the side of the road
There was a bright light
A shattering of shop windows
The bomb in the baby carriage
Was wired to the radio."
Echoes of Hemingway dispatches from In Our Time. One paragraph tells the entire story. Only two adjectives.
Be confident when you write, don't be afraid to be unconventional. I've used the word "But" to start a sentence when I felt it was needed. And yes the best work will indeed have 3 maybe 4 draft's.
In my opinion "A farewell to arms" is his best
Yep.
I greatly admire Hemingway but also Wilde and many other prose stylists who used long sentences, full of dependent clauses, which mimic both in form and content the variety of subtle and contradictory impulses of the human condition while at the same time induct the reader into the broad and majestic river of language that draws one forward into a mellifluous immersion in the music of language which differs only in kind, not in quality, to the mountain brook clarity of Earnest Hemingway.
That was such a beautiful paragraph
Well put. ;v)
I'm a visual artist writing a work statement at the moment. For me, Hemigway's style is akin to minimalist contemporary art. The key words here are -- "laconic" and "impact". Wilde is decorative arts, William Morris tapestry, Renaissance motifs. Both are hugely important for building good taste in all sorts of abstract thinking. But Hemingway is another level of modernity and relevance
so beautiful words
I absolutely love Hemingway. But... Wilde's novel is brilliant, too. I think it is a bit short-sighted to call his style tedious. It just requires a different mind-set to appreciate it.
I concur.
Hemingway is like baking soda biscuits.
Wilde is like a complicated braided cinnamon bread.
Different, but both are good.
The late great crime writer Elmore Leonard stated that Hemingway’s work had a profound influence on his writing style. The splendid economy of his writing over a span of over 60 years confirm the lessons he learned by appreciating Hemingway’s approach to effective writing.
Absolutely!
Charles Dickens was my earliest realization of differing and personal writing styles, but now is the time to find, adapt, readapt, or merely ontinue to sharpen that individual writing style by any & virtually every human alive, The written word has never been as strong, so the Internet has been sculpting far greater communications for humanity.
The writing positive rule really makes sense. Positive language is much more precise. If you say, "I did not feel good." that could mean you were feeling bad, or neutral. Negative language always bothers me for this reason. Inversely I think the rule can be broken for dialogue. Since realistic characters won't follow the rule, and also people use ambiguity to fool others. It might actually harm a story to have all the characters speaking, or thinking in positive language.
Thanks for explaining. I never understood what was wrong with it
JUST THE NAME HEMINGWAY MADE ME WANT TO VISIT KEY WEST FLORIDA FOR YEARS. NOW AT 75, I DID SO A FEW MONTHS AGO. THE TOUR OF HEMINGWAY'S HOME WAS UNIQUE AS WAS THE TOUR GUIDE FROM GERMANY, A STUDIED IN FRANCE. THE WALLS OF EVERY ROOM DESCRIBED SOME PART OF HEMINGWAY'S LIFE. FOR SOME REASON I RELATED MY LIFE TO HIM AND I DON'T KNOW WHY. PERHAPS MY LOVE OF CATS, AS HIS FELINE PALS REMAIN IN ANCESTRAL DNA, AND ARE BURIED ON SITE. HE WROTE FROM 6 AM TO 1230 THEN WENT DEEP SEA FISHING ONE OF HIS LOVES. HE WOULD VISIT IDAHO TO HUNT IN WINTER, AND NOW I UNDERSTAND WHY BEING BORN IN KANSAS. I WALKED THE STREETS AND VISITED OPEN AIR RESTAURANTS JUST IMAGINING HIS PRESENTS. THAN YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS.
A friend of mine had his wedding at the Hemingway House in Key West. When I went to Paris a few years ago, my favorite part was walking the streets and finding the places Hemingway wrote about in A Moveable Feast. I'm also a big fan of Ken Burns' documentaries so I've been waiting to watch this for years, since whenever they first announced it. 2021 felt so far away.
Stop shouting at us!
Short sentences, long sentences. It's about pacing and variation.
The same rules easily apply to navigating Marriage, Career and your horrific new neighbors.
Thanks for creating this tutorial featuring the skills of Ernest Hemingway. Cheers!
These are great tips. Especially about the need for rewriting.. The story is created in the first draft. Rewriting transforms it into something readable. A third and maybe a fourth rewrite turn it into something others might actually want to read.
A Farewell to Arms is probably his most beloved and most enduring novel.
Thank you so much for contributing this!!
POSITIVELY great advice! Thank you!
Solid. Thank you for making this!
Thank you for this series of how the great ones write.
Thanks a lot for reminding!
Thank you so much for posting this informative/educative video on writing; that too, the tips coming from the best writer, Ernest Hemingway.
I'm going to start writing this year. Short stories and poems for the next twelve months. My life experiences can influence your free will. This is your one and only warning 🙂
Thank you Sir. I'll be pleased to watch another video about Jack London's Style of writing. keep up your work.
I completely understand and agree with this advice, and what I like the most is the short and clear explanation. John did an excellent job. Thanks.
Thank you! Very interesting advices!
Awesome video. Clear and concise, like Hemingway himself
Thank you for the tips!
Thank you for the innovative approach!
" For whom the bell tolls", "The old man n the sea" I love his style
Powerful video. Thanks for the writing tips.
Hemingway is amazing! Thank you for sharing these golden rules!
Can I add another great piece of advice? George Orwell told us to go over our work and cut out as many adjectives as possible. When we think we are done, cut out one more.
I love Orwell's writing, but I'm also a fan of judiciously deployed adjectives. I'm torn.
@@estebanb7166 being torn is compound interest for writing.
if you like both, obey the 80/20 rule to have constraint.
if constraint is a creative blocker, put on paper how you would best sum up your topic orally.
if none of this helps, put up a corpus of 3 texts coming from your Praise list, observe yourself resonating with some parts of the text. try to get into that state of mind and scream write it.
another one that helped greatly for me was "write drunk, edit sober"
good luck
Beg to differ.
Adjectives tell the story.
Yes, they must be crisp, and apropos; but they are essential to a description.
Without adjectives, every story would just be "Boy Meets Girl."
But when you have, say, "Homely Boy Meets Beautiful Girl", now you have a story.
@@estebanb7166 Agreed. I was taught: "If you come across an adjective: Kill it." (Can't remember who said that.) I applied it on all my texts and stories, only to end up with precise, on-point albeit clinical, dead prose. I now use adjectives again, but only very specific ones, mostly weird, unexpected ones that help define characters in subtle, almost subtextual ways. I think this is the way. Mostly, when people tell you: "Don't do this or that AT ALL" or "always do this" they're not right. There's always middle ground. Which is where your personal truth lies.
@@Ekkobelli You don’t need adjectives to provide descriptions. Turn “It was a rainy or cloudy or windy or stormy day” to “The clouds had hidden the sun. “As the wind showed no mercy. Trees danced in solidarity, shaking off their leaves. And water had dominated the streets.” No adjectives but still vividly written.
This video is great. Thank you. Love it really handy.
Wonderful Video! Thanks for sharing your ideas!
Most of his style is almost identical to what is taught in journalism courses.
Yes. I enjoyed many of his short stories, and I liked "The Old Man and the Sea". I also liked his nonfiction "Death in the Afternoon". I never finished anything else he wrote because his sparse language lacked flair, and got boring.
@@peterpuleo2904 this is the risk. It's frustrating when writing courses suggest we write like Hemingway. His style is not appropriate for all writers, or writing, by any means, and is based in its own metaphysics and world view. Still, good to have in your toolkit 👍
Yep. But literature isn’t really journalism, is it? They kinda serve different purposes. Journalism is to inform. Literature should entertain and inspire, at least in my view.
@@tacktful this. Hemingway wrote at a time when reading was a pursuit for high faluting educated types....so he broke from convention and wrote like a layman which made his books an easy read for even the most barely literate person....
@@peterpuleo2904 I never understood why Hemingway is supposed to be the best. Luckily Im not alone.
So Informative .thank you
Excellent video about Hemingway's writing style. I love it.
Thank you for these enlightening tips.
Glad it was helpful!
LOVE THIS! Thank you! I've watched it 4 times, and I'm subscribing now.
I didn't know he was a KC Gentleman
I am writing in German and always looking for helpful input. Thank you for this. Very precious.
Thank you for the tips.
thank you.... the Hemingway personification in Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" comes to mind..... well done.
short clips from a small town or city neighborhood..... punch writing...... works.
I loved "The Old Man and the Sea." The story is simple and powerful. I keep thinking about it.
I re-read it a few months ago. It is so haunting, so human. We all need to have more strength of spirit like the old man. It's a worthwhile read for the COVID-19 era or anytime.
AWildBard me too I read it in my own language. It was simple short and strong
@@jamesaritchie1 love the movie and especially Spencer Tracy but we have to admit he didn’t look like a starving fisherman.
Thanks, very helpful!
Happy i saw this. Still getting used to rewriting drafts. Was formerly a 1st drafr writer.
Excellent video. Useful. Effective.
Great video. Thank you.
Thank you. This is helpful.
The text was concise. The four rules were good advice.
Thanks for sharing! Very informative!
Glad it was helpful!
Excellent. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Very interesting.
Thanks. This helped a lot.
Thanks sir...
Awesome teaching
Love Hemingway. There‘s before Hemingway and after Hemingway.
I understand why "good" is generally preferable to "not bad". Yet, "The movie was not bad" has a subtly different meaning than "The movie was good." An example like this may be exception worth considering.
Thank you this was great
Very nice, Inspiration!
Excallent and benefitful guidance
Very nice content. Love it
Thank you for the video! )))
Great video. To the point. Thank you.
Thanks for watching!
Thank you for the lesson.
My pleasure!
Thank you for this video
Nothing what I never heard before, but a very good explanation video. TY
Just subcribed. This is an awesome video for my report!
This omits “have something to say.” That lets out many writers, and reams of screed.
Henry James probably epitomizes the long sentence. His late work had a distinctly ornate beauty, but this advice cuts to what strikes an impression most effectively and is a world more useful.
Thanks DL been following this Hemingway advice for a long time
(since after grad school). Made me a much better writer - and just as
importantly? A lot EASIER read!
Re: short sentences and paragraphs. Mine USED to be like the long
and winding road! Great piece DL
I'm an English Language and Literature student and I've just found your channel and I love it! Your speech is very clear and understandable!
Thank you! Much appreciated. Please spread the word about this channel.
@@VelocityWriting you are the most humble 'tone" that I ever heard, requesting so softly to subscribe. No wonder I became a fan.
Great advice! 👍🏻😌
Great tips!
Yes...use short everything. Keep it simple. And keep refining your work to keep it sharp, crisp, and brief. Good luck.
Excellent episode. I am currently trying to overcome my block.
Please take this as an observation, not a criticism. Following one's own advice is difficult, even for the great Hemingway. In the quote at the 5 minute mark, he says, "No man [...] can fail to write well if he abides with them." Given your interpretation of his fourth piece of advice, "be positive, not negative," I submit this sentence should be written, "Any man [...] will write well if he abides with them."
I like how simple and concise this video was. No carrion no waste.
Hemingway would approve.
Now, cross out Concise and Carrion.
I will use these tips thanks
Thank you for your help
Hemingway is Hemingway. Style should depend on the subject matter and the author's voice; another author might prefer longer sentences and have a very good reason, too. And then you have the issue of different rhythm, syntax, etc. of various languages. It seems to me that "short" rules are arbitrary. Hemingway liked it that way, good for him. Years ago, Stephen King proposed eradicating adverbs altogether. Nonsense. There are very few rock-solid advice for writing and they are mostly not about style, but story, for example: to have some kind of conflict.
exactly! this video is advice on how to write like Hemingway, not how to write in general (or 'in specific'!). create your own style, but certainly writing is rewriting and rewriting and rewriting...
Couldn't agree more! My first rule for writing is that it is good to have something actually interesting to write about. Second rule, write the first chapter or paragraph last. Third rule, rewrite and rewrite until the rhythm is right.
agreed - i have read a couple writers on writing - and watched his video - and will watch others in the future - but not to let their style wholly supplant mine - but instead to gain some perspective on the art - and adopt what fits me - and ignore what doesn't
Very good advice. I was prepared to discard what you were about to say? After listening I found myself agreeing with you!
"Keep it short and sweet"
In today reality of texting. Keep one thoughts to 15 to 20 words so it can be read.
Oscar Wilde used a sentence 127 words long. So the idea of using short sentences is shot down immediately by an equally successful writer. I think the trick to be good at writing is simply, write a lot.
Great commentary
When you mentioned extended sentences, I immediately remembered reading John Locke who sometimes seems to fill more than a page with one sentence
Yes, but that may be the main reason (along with his subject matter) why Locke does not sell many books. For example, his Oxford collection has average sales of $67 per month on Amazon.
Meanwhile, just one Hemingway book, "A Farewell to Arms" is still selling at the rate of $ 10,240 per month. "For Whom the Bell Tolls" is doing $8,275 per month on Amazon. Those are the only two Hemingway titles I checked.
So, short sentences win! :-)
Of course, I hope you see I'm just playing. My facts are correct, but you need to consider the subject matter. That said, someone could probably make a load of money today if they re-wrote Locke so his circumlocutious sentences were more accessible to today's readers.
I subbed because you look like my 6th grade science teacher.The difference is you have a personality.
Thank you po 🤗
I'd enjoying a lot about the concept of writing I learned more from you Mr. VelocityWriting I briefly open my curiosity in writing. thank you and Godbless
Thank you. Also, thank you for subscribing to my YT channel.
Well said.
Great video!
Great tips! Hemingway was AWESOME!
Yes, I agree. He seems to be under-appreciated by some today. Nevertheless, there is much for writers to learn from reading his books.
@@VelocityWriting He remains among the best stylists of all time, despite the censorious politics of our time.
Favor completed!!!!!! Best regards from Brazil.
A wonderful review of Hemingway's style. Thank you. Dale E. Manolakas, Legal Thriller writer
What’s a legal thriller?
Thank you. These are good ideas. Best wishes from New Zealand.
Kia ora! I lived 10 years in NZ and have permanent residency status there. But I have been back home in the US for a number of years now. All the best.
@@VelocityWriting Kia ora from Nelson. I have a brother who lives in Colorado. Small world nowadays. I like the way you started a sentence with 'But'. I do that too. 'And I often start a sentence with 'And'. My old teachers wouldn't have liked it much.