33 unusual tips to being a better writer altucher confidential

7/27/2019 33 Unusual Tips to Being a Better Writer Altucher Confidential

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www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/03/33-unusual-tips-to-being-a-better-writer/ 2/19

- Write a lot. I spent the entire 90s writing bad fiction. 5 bad novels. Dozens of bad stories. But I

learned to handle massive rejection. And how to put two words together. In my head, I won the pulitzer

prize. But in my hand, over 100 rejection letters.

- Read a lot. You cant write without first reading. A lot. When I was writing five bad novels in a row

I would read all day long whenever I wasnt writing (I had a job as a programmer, which I would do for

about five minutes a day because my programs all worked and I just had to maintain them). I read

everything I could get my hands on.

- Read before you write. Before I write every day I spend 30-60 minutes reading high quality short

stories poetry, or essays. Books by Denis Johnson, Miranda July, David Foster Wallace, Ariel Leve,

William Vollmann, Raymond Carver, etc. All of the writers are in the top 1/1000 of 1% of writers. It has to

be at that level or else it wont lift up your writing at all.

- Coffee. I go through three cups at least before I even begin to write. No coffee, no creativity.

- Break the laws of physics . Theres no time in text. Nothing has to go in order. Dont make itnonsense. But dont be beholden to the laws of physics. Advice I Want to Tell My Daughters is an example.

- Be Honest. Tell people the stuff they all think but nobody ever says. Some people will be angry you

let out the secret. But most people will be grateful. Else you arent delivering value. Be the little boy in the

Emperor Wears No Clothes. If you cant do this, dont write.

- Dont Hurt Anyone. This goes against the above rule. But I never like to hurt people. And I dont

respect people who get pageviews by breaking this rule. Dont be a bad guy. Was Buddha a Bad Father?

addresses this.
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- Dont be afraid of what people think. For each single person you worry about, deduct 1% in

quality from your writing. Everyone has deductions. I have to deduct about 10% right off the top. Maybe

theres 10 people Im worried about. Some of them are evil people. Some of them are people I just dontwant to offend. So my writing is only about 90% of what it could be. But I think most people write at about

20% of what it could be. Believe it or not, clients, customers, friends, family, will love you more if you are

honest with them. So we all have our boundaries. But try this: for the next ten things you write, tell

people something that nobody knows about you.

- Be opinionated. Most people I know have strong opinions about at least one or two things. Write

about those. Nobody cares about all the things you dont have strong opinions on. Barry Ritholz told me the

other day he doesnt start writing until hes angry about something. Thats one approach. Barry and I have

had some great writing fights because sometimes weve been angry at each other.

- Have a shocking title. I blew it the other day. I wanted to title this piece: How I torture women

but I settled for Im guilty of torture. I wimped out. But I have some other fun ones. Like is it bad I wanted

my first kid to be aborted (which the famous Howard Lindzon cautioned me against). Dont forget that you

are competing against a trillion other pieces of content out there. So you need a title to draw people in. Else

you lose.

- Steal. I dont quite mean it literally. But if you know a topic gets pageviews (and you arent hurting

anyone) than steal it, no matter whos written about it or how many times youve written about it before.

How I Screwed Yasser Arafat out of $2mm was able to nicely piggyback off of how amazingly popularYasser Arafat is.

- Make people cry. If youve ever been in love, you know how to cry. Bring readers to that moment

when they were a child, and all of life was in front of them, except for that one bittersweet moment when
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everything began to change. If only that one moment couldve lasted forever. Please let me go back in time

right now to that moment. But now its gone.

- Relate to people. The past decade has totally sucked. For everyone. The country has been in post-

traumatic stress syndrome since 9/11 and 2008 only made it worse. Ive gone broke a few times during the

decade, had a divorce, lost friendships, and have only survived (barely) by being persistent and knowing I

had two kids to take care of, and loneliness to fight. Nobodys perfect. Were all trying. Show people how

you are trying and struggling. Nobody expects you to be a superhero.

- Time heals all wounds. Everyone has experiences they dont want to write about. But with enough

time, its ok. My New Years Resolution of 1995 is pretty embarrassing. But whatever. Its 16 years ago.. The

longer back you go, the less you have to worry about what people think.

- Risk. Notice that almost all of these rules are about where the boundaries are. Most people play it

too safe. When you are really risking something and the reader senses that (and they WILL sense it), then

you know you are in good territory. If you arent risking something, then Im moving on. I know Im on the

right track if after I post something someone tweets, OMFG.

- Be funny. You can be all of the above and be funny at the same time. When I went to India I was

brutalized by my first few yoga classes (actually every yoga class). And I was intimidated by everyone around

me. They were like yoga superheroes and I felt like a fraud around them. So I cried, and hopefully people

laughed. It was also a case where I didnt have to dig into my past but I had an experience that was

happening to me right then. How do you be funny? First rule of funny: ugly people are funny. Im naturally

ugly so its easy. Make yourself as ugly as possible. Nobody wants to read that you are beautiful and doing

great in life.

- The last line needs to go BOOM! . Your article is meaningless unless the last line KILLS. Read

the book of short stories Jesus Son by Denis Johnson. Its the only way to learn how to do a last line. The

last line should take you all the way back to the first line and then BOOM!

- Use a lot of periods. Forget commas and semicolons. A period makes people pause. Your

sentences should be strong enough that you want people to pause and think about it. This will also make

your sentences shorter. Short sentences are good.

- Write every day. This is a must. Writing is spiritual practice. You are diving inside of yourself and

cleaning out the toxins. If you dont do it every day, you lose the ability. If you do it every day, then slowly

you find out where all the toxins are. And the cleaning can begin.
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- Write with the same voice you talk in. Youve spent your whole life learning how to communicate

with that voice. Why change it when you communicate with text?

- Deliver value with every sentence. Even on a tweet or Facebook status update. Deliver poetry

and value with ever word. Else, be quiet. (And, of course, follow me on twitterfor more examples)

- Take what everyone thinks and explore the opposite. Dont disagree just to disagree. But

explore. Turn the world upside down. Guess what? There are people living in China. Plenty of times youllfind value where nobody else did.

- Have lots of ideas. I discuss this in How to be the Luckiest Man Alive in the Daily Practice

section. Your idea muscle atrophies within days if you dont exercise it. Then what do you do? You need to

exercise it every day until it hurts. Else no ideas.

- Sleep eight hours a day. Go to sleep before 9pm at least 4 days a week. And stretch while taking

deep breaths before you write. We supposedly use only 5% of our brain. You need to use 6% at least to

write better than everyone else. So make sure your brain is getting as much healthy oxygen as possible. Too

many people waste valuable writing or resting time by chattering until all hours of the night.

- Dont write if youre upset at someone. Then the person you are upset at becomes your audience.

You want to love and flirt with your audience so they can love you back.

- Use said instead of any other word. Dont use he suggested or he bellowed. Just he said.

Well figure it out if he suggested something.

- Paint. Or draw. Keep exercising other creative muscles.

- Let it sleep. Whatever you are working on, sleep on it. Then wake up, stretch, coffee, read, and

look again. Rewrite. Take out every other sentence.

- Then take out every other sentence again. Or something like that.

Sanket didnt want to go to grad school after we graduated. He had another plan. Lets go to Thailand, he

said. And become monks in a Buddhist monastery for a year. We can date Thai women whenever we arentbegging for food, he said. It will be great and well get life experience.

It sounded good to me.
http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/02/how-to-be-the-luckiest-guy-on-the-planet-in-4-easy-steps/http://twitter.com/jaltucher


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But then he got accepted to the University of Wisconsin and got a PhD. Now he lives in India and works for

Oracle. And as for me, I dont know what the hell happened to me.

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Crashkdw a year ago

Well, James, I've been following your daily practice. I'm coming up with lots of ideas and

I'm trying to share them with everyone I thing they might help. So here are a few I have onwriting.

FYI, I was a writer and editor of a major national news website and magazine for 11 years, and

currently write newsletters, books and reports in the health and wellness field, in case anyone is

wondering "Who the *#*%^ is this guy?"

1. Read a lot - I know, James said this, but don't do it just to read. Get a sense of how other

people use language when they write. Juxtapose how you hear your own words in your own head

with how you hear someone else's. The contrast will give you a better sense of your own voice.

2. Find a poet who writes with a cadence you identify with - My favorite is Richard Wilbur,

especially his poem "The Beautiful Changes" which I think is the most beautiful thing ever written

in the English language. But that's me. Now you choose...

3. Make it half as long - In the movie "A River Runs Through It," Tom Skerrit's character teaches

his future-reporter son Brad Pitt to write with brevity and focus. He gives him an assignment,

corrects it, and sends little Brad back upstairs to repeatedly make what he wrote "half as long."

Until a whole page became one sentence. Good practice. Helps you learn to self-edit.

4. Be specific - Vague stinks. Use the boring down technique. It's not a gun, it's a revolver. It's

not a revolver, it's a Smith and Wesson revolver. It's a pearl handled S&W revolver, It's a loaded,

pearl handled S&W revolver. Etc.

5. Let them eat the cake - Don't force the reader to eat gruel. They want yummy. I read a quote

152

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Reply

once: "When I eat chocolate cake, 20 minutes later I'm under

my desk wanting to die. When I eat broccoli, in 20 minutes I feel good. But

given the choice I always eat the cake."

6. If you have to write "in other words" to explain something you just wrote, delete what you just

wrote, and the "in other words," and leave what's left.

7. Show, don't tell - Say strong things, but let the reader draw the conclusion, and feel the

emotion. Be outraged, but don't write "I'm outraged."

8. Be responsible. You can't say something like "Most people are depressed." It's not true, and

people will think you're accusing them of being something they're not. Say something like, "A

surprising number of people walk around each day unhappy and stressed,

completely unaware of the potentially serious damage that is being done to

their bodies.

9. Avoid the words "just" and "actually." Oh, and also, "believe it or not."

10. Be simple - Find your writing's readability index. More than 7.5 and no one is going to get

what you are writing.

http://www.standards-schmandar...

11. Numbers and facts are not intriguing - They're confusing and people gloss over them.

12. Start in the middle of the action - I know, stories are supposed to have beginnings, middles

and ends. Blah blah blah. Throw the reader in the fire with you right from the beginning.

13. Don't even use "said" at all - Use your descriptive powers and the conversation or action to

tell the reader who is talking, if you even need to.

I can come up with more if everybody wants... but I like 13. If you're going to use a number, use a

weird one and not a round one. Odd numbers are intriguing. Happy writing!

42

Reply

Sunflowers a year ago> Crashkdw

Great tips. It was worth reading James' article to get them.

5

Reply

Dann y Greer 11 months ago> Crashkdw

Thanks for sharing! Both of these lists contain fantastic "rules to write by."

0

Nigel j Watson a year ago> Crashkdw

I have a unique ( others say, idiosyncratic), auto-didactic literary style. Not that I

want to use James' Comments section as a hook-up station, but I have no other way of

doing this: would you be interested in vetting a sample of my style? Of the 3 samples I

pasted into standard-schmandard (love the name!), they required grade levels of 9, 15 &

17(LOL - I'm a 10th grade drop-out). The ease of reading ranked all 3 below 40.

I deal with complex subjects, but I'd love to make my thoughts more accessible to a less

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33 unusual tips to being a better writer altucher confidential

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