The Dailies

Word of the Day

Gist (n., JIST)

The essential core of something.

Gif of the Day

TagsDogsPomeraniansHaircutsGently, gentlyWhat's tan and white and happy all over?Invisible island in the sun

Link of the Day

Rebecca Solnit's 10 tips on writing

There are a lot of "how to be a writer" posts out there, but Rebecca Solnit's 10 tips from last year is one of our favorites. It's at home on LitHub, where its direct plainspokenness matches the quality of the site's writing. It's also an article only an editor could write (more on editing later this week), concise and precisely aimed. It's not the only article on writing you should read, but it's a great place to start.

7) Facts. Always get them right. The wrong information about a bumblebee in a poem is annoying enough, but inaccuracy in nonfiction is a cardinal sin. No one will trust you if you get your facts wrong, and if you’re writing about living or recently alive people or politics you absolutely must not misrepresent. (Ask yourself this: do I like it when people lie about me?) No matter what you’re writing about, you have an obligation to get it right, for the people you’re writing about, for the readers, and for the record. It’s why I always tell students that it’s a slippery slope from the things your stepfather didn’t actually do to the weapons of mass destruction Iraq didn’t actually have. If you want to write about a stepfather who did things your stepfather didn’t, or repeat conversations you don’t actually remember with any detail, at least label your product accurately. Fiction operates under different rules but it often has facts in it too, and your credibility rests on their accuracy. (If you want to make up facts, like that Emily Bronte was nine feet tall and had wings but everyone in that Victorian era was too proper to mention it, remember to get the details about her cobbler and the kind of hat in fashion at the time right, and maybe put a little cameo at her throat seven and a half feet above the earth.)

You can read all of Solnit's tips over at LitHub.

TagsWritingRebecca Solnit10 TipsNon-listicle listiclesGood, solid adviceDo, or do not?