{"id":12623,"date":"2008-03-08T19:42:44","date_gmt":"2008-03-09T00:42:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=12623"},"modified":"2014-01-13T19:48:57","modified_gmt":"2014-01-14T00:48:57","slug":"writing-advice-from-1908part-viii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2008\/03\/08\/writing-advice-from-1908part-viii\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing advice from 1908\u2014Part VIII"},"content":{"rendered":"

For our last look at Dr. J. Berg Esenwein’s 1908 book Writing the Short-Story: A Practical Handbook on the Rise, Structure, Writing and Sale of the Modern Short-Story<\/i>, let’s see what he has to say about how it all should begin.<\/p>\n

\"WritingtheShortStoryEsenwein\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is what he advised a century ago:<\/p>\n

In opening your story:<\/p>\n

Don’t be pert.<\/p>\n

Don’t be lengthy.<\/p>\n

Don’t be general.<\/p>\n

Don’t be garrulous.<\/p>\n

Don’t be roundabout.<\/p>\n

Don’t describe when you can suggest.<\/p>\n

Don’t be heavy, pompous, or too serious.<\/p>\n

Don’t tell the reader what he can imagine.<\/p>\n

Don’t be content with a commonplace opening.<\/p>\n

Don’t think that sincere simplicity is commonplace.<\/p>\n

Don’t let the introduction weight down or overshadow the story.<\/p>\n

Don’t strike one note in the introduction and another in the body of the story.<\/p>\n

Don’t touch anything which is not a live wire leading direct to the real centre of the story.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For our last look at Dr. J. Berg Esenwein’s 1908 book Writing the Short-Story: A Practical Handbook on the Rise, Structure, Writing and Sale of the Modern Short-Story, let’s see what he has to say about how it all should begin. This is what he advised a century ago: In opening your story: Don’t be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13],"class_list":["post-12623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-old-magazines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12623"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12625,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12623\/revisions\/12625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}