Wonderful wonderful piece, Celine. I find copying to profound too because it unlocks a creativity found through another mind, — which for someone just starting out, is immensely beneficial. Hemingway (who I'm not the biggest fan of if we're being honest here) started out by copywriting Steins' The Making of Americans, after all, and that book's singular prose comes through in his prose. He took the lessons with him, clearly.
thank you Griffin!! I'm also remembering now that Benjamin Franklin would take articles he admired and reverse outline them, take notes on the structure, and then try to recreate the article using his notes + memory…a time-honored technique for improving one's writing!
and thank you for sharing Typelit (which I've never seen before but is surprisingly meditative and enjoyable)
I'll need to get on that as well, haven't ever done the deconstruction thing yet. And yeah! I love Typelit even if I wish there was more variety on there (there's very little poetry)
Phenomenal and insightful! Your examples, and the description of these examples, are inspiring—encouraging me to get back to my old writing in new ways. Thank you for compiling, curating, and creating this.
Thank you for reading, and for these kind words!! What I really love about these essays is that they feel so RICH with techniques and new ways of approaching writing…it's really helpful when I'm sick of my own work and don't know how to improve it
This is amazing! It makes me think of that anecdote about Joan Didion typing Hemingway's sentences so she could understand their structure. It really is an art, and understanding the foundations is imperative, even if it might seem counterintuitive and overly formulaic at first. I've found that doing this opens up my writing significantly.
re: the Malcolm/Lolita opening, I always try and keep in mind something Martin Amis said, which is that you should write for the smartest ten percent of your readers. It sounds pompous but is really the opposite, it extends to your readers the respect of assuming they know these things and puts you in the role of a participant in a conversation rather than a pedagogue. And it prevents you from being willfully obscure or pretentious, because if you really are writing for your smartest readers, you have to assume they’ll see through your bullshit.
celine, i adore your posts so much. they're so phenomenal and comprehensive and i find myself taking away so much advice—your intellectual curiosity is so inspirational!
I don’t intend to start writing critical essays but as always this was such a joy to read. It’s so fun to understand “this is why this essay was fun/hard/slow/fast to read!” Thank you for always pulling back the curtain and providing those sorts of moments.
Thank you for this, Celine! I printed this out to stick in my “favorite essays binder” and took lots of notes in the margins. Thank you for dissecting these different methods to approaching structure of an essay — excited to put the method of dissection into practice to really develop my own voice.
Fascinating and inspiring to see how you take your craft so seriously. Learned a lot from this post and will consider doing the same exercise with my favorite essays + making some beetroot walnut claypot...
i really love this exercise! i wish to be a more intentional reader this year — i found myself identifying uncomfortably closely with a.o. scott's culturally ravenous adolescent. i'm going to give this a try. also, not sure if you read this bookforum piece on janet malcolm, but it's really fantastic and also has a super compelling introductory paragraph. https://www.bookforum.com/print/3002/janet-malcolm-s-late-confessions-25261
I am really struggling with a beginning, and this is just such a gorgeously organized, well articulated guide. It left me inspired. Maybe I will find my beginning after all!
SO insightful celine!! i bookmarked all of these essays in 0.1 seconds WOW!! you picked such marvellous examples they really are so ENTICING , CLEAR , & SATISFYING!!
Wonderful wonderful piece, Celine. I find copying to profound too because it unlocks a creativity found through another mind, — which for someone just starting out, is immensely beneficial. Hemingway (who I'm not the biggest fan of if we're being honest here) started out by copywriting Steins' The Making of Americans, after all, and that book's singular prose comes through in his prose. He took the lessons with him, clearly.
An additional resource that I've found to really enjoy is https://www.typelit.io/
though, I will say, it doesn't quite beat sitting with an essay or a book that you truly admire and rewriting it by hand or verbatim into a word doc.
thank you Griffin!! I'm also remembering now that Benjamin Franklin would take articles he admired and reverse outline them, take notes on the structure, and then try to recreate the article using his notes + memory…a time-honored technique for improving one's writing!
and thank you for sharing Typelit (which I've never seen before but is surprisingly meditative and enjoyable)
I'll need to get on that as well, haven't ever done the deconstruction thing yet. And yeah! I love Typelit even if I wish there was more variety on there (there's very little poetry)
This was really helpful to the beginners who wants to dabble in writing essays. 👌🏼
Loved this, thank you so much. All Media is Training Data is gorgeous and so fun to page through, you should definitely get a copy!
thank you Taryn! not that I needed convincing…but this is very helpful to know and I will open up the Serpentine web shop in a new tab…
Phenomenal and insightful! Your examples, and the description of these examples, are inspiring—encouraging me to get back to my old writing in new ways. Thank you for compiling, curating, and creating this.
Thank you for reading, and for these kind words!! What I really love about these essays is that they feel so RICH with techniques and new ways of approaching writing…it's really helpful when I'm sick of my own work and don't know how to improve it
This is amazing! It makes me think of that anecdote about Joan Didion typing Hemingway's sentences so she could understand their structure. It really is an art, and understanding the foundations is imperative, even if it might seem counterintuitive and overly formulaic at first. I've found that doing this opens up my writing significantly.
Exactly this!! I was thinking the same thing as I read this. An exercise I’m going to put into practice for sure.
re: the Malcolm/Lolita opening, I always try and keep in mind something Martin Amis said, which is that you should write for the smartest ten percent of your readers. It sounds pompous but is really the opposite, it extends to your readers the respect of assuming they know these things and puts you in the role of a participant in a conversation rather than a pedagogue. And it prevents you from being willfully obscure or pretentious, because if you really are writing for your smartest readers, you have to assume they’ll see through your bullshit.
celine, i adore your posts so much. they're so phenomenal and comprehensive and i find myself taking away so much advice—your intellectual curiosity is so inspirational!
I don’t intend to start writing critical essays but as always this was such a joy to read. It’s so fun to understand “this is why this essay was fun/hard/slow/fast to read!” Thank you for always pulling back the curtain and providing those sorts of moments.
Thank you for this, Celine! I printed this out to stick in my “favorite essays binder” and took lots of notes in the margins. Thank you for dissecting these different methods to approaching structure of an essay — excited to put the method of dissection into practice to really develop my own voice.
Fascinating and inspiring to see how you take your craft so seriously. Learned a lot from this post and will consider doing the same exercise with my favorite essays + making some beetroot walnut claypot...
amazing as always celine, let me know when you finish 41 false starts -- phenomenal collection
i really love this exercise! i wish to be a more intentional reader this year — i found myself identifying uncomfortably closely with a.o. scott's culturally ravenous adolescent. i'm going to give this a try. also, not sure if you read this bookforum piece on janet malcolm, but it's really fantastic and also has a super compelling introductory paragraph. https://www.bookforum.com/print/3002/janet-malcolm-s-late-confessions-25261
I am really struggling with a beginning, and this is just such a gorgeously organized, well articulated guide. It left me inspired. Maybe I will find my beginning after all!
Fantastic piece, Celine, thank you so much for sharing. Very thoughtful way to start my day!
treasure!
SO insightful celine!! i bookmarked all of these essays in 0.1 seconds WOW!! you picked such marvellous examples they really are so ENTICING , CLEAR , & SATISFYING!!