The Art and Craft of Writing (or, the worst and best advice you’ll ever get as an author)

I’ve recently been invited to talk to a few writing groups, about the experience of transitioning from a reader, to a budding writer, to a published author. This column comes as a result of thinking about that journey, from the advice I gave and the questions I answered, plus a few interesting discoveries on the internet I made along the way.

First, for funsies, it seems like we keep telling ourselves the same stories. In a recent study, researchers have fed numerous books to a machine learning module, and it has found The Six Main Arcs in Storytelling, as Identified by an A.I. It’s amazing to see how a computer analyses emotional highs and lows, based on language. This isn’t about machines taking over storytelling, but how we can harness technology to better understand ourselves.

Do make sure you follow the YouTube link in the article to Kurt Vonnegut “story…