Comments on: Writing lessons from Tom Wolfe

By: Daphne Gray-Grant

Daphne Gray-Grant — Sat, 02 Jun 2018 14:29:00 +0000

In reply to David Carlson. I remember reading Bonfire of the Vanities about 30 years ago. I loved it at the time but have no idea what I'd think of it now. Might be worth a reread this summer!

By: Daphne Gray-Grant

Daphne Gray-Grant — Sat, 02 Jun 2018 14:27:00 +0000

In reply to sthrendyle. It's interesting how writing goes through certain "fashions," in much the same way the clothing industry does. I agree that Wolfe's writing hasn't aged particularly well. But he's a good representative of a certain point in time in American letters.

By: Daphne Gray-Grant

Daphne Gray-Grant — Sat, 02 Jun 2018 14:27:00 +0000

In reply to Heidi Yorkshire. I'd never heard that before. Charming!

By: Daphne Gray-Grant

Daphne Gray-Grant — Sat, 02 Jun 2018 14:25:00 +0000

In reply to CherieE1. Absolutely! The human brain is hardwired to respond to stories...

By: David Carlson

David Carlson — Tue, 29 May 2018 22:08:00 +0000

The day Tom Wolfe died I took home “Back to Blood”, his only work available from our local library.

Be prepared for graphic porn, ethnic and racial language spelled out in large letters, dragged out as it sounds for several lines. Detailed story-telling it is, as if the writer had been kicked out of his Cuban Miami neighborhood, and tries to communicate with Haitians a few blocks away. His beautiful Cuban girl friend catches the eye of a famous TV psychologist, who whisks her across Biscayne Bay on a cigarette boat to view a most expicit sexual regatta, projected in close-up detail on a 12 foot sail.

Several slices of life the way it is in South Florida. Yes, he went far beyond James Joyce.

“The Bonfire of the Vanities” waits on my desk.

By: Heidi Yorkshire

Heidi Yorkshire — Tue, 29 May 2018 20:51:00 +0000

The great John McPhee said that whenever he had a hard time getting started on a piece, he would type, “Dear Mom.”

By: sthrendyle

sthrendyle — Tue, 29 May 2018 18:07:00 +0000

The idea of creating a story by starting out as a ‘letter to a friend’ reminds me of what former WEST editor Paul Sullivan once said at a magazine conference, and that is that “a good magazine, one you can’t live without, should be like your best friend. Someone to turn to for advice, for entertainment, for information” (or, I THINK he said it, hell, maybe I’ll just go ahead and claim it since I don’t think Paul’s in The Game any longer, haha!) Like listening to, I don’t know, Jefferson Airplane, maybe? Wolfe’s writing hasn’t aged particularly well; perhaps because the subject matter happened so long ago. It’s interesting (and I never heard anything about it around the time of Wolfe’s death) that at the very same time Wolfe released Bonfire of the Vanities about Wall Street greed, another young NYC writer named Michael Lewis wrote a ‘tell-all’ about life as a young bond trader for (I think) Goldman Sachs. Lewis, of course, is a wildly successful writer as well though I’m sure far more people knew about Tom Wolfe. Wolfe, like Gay Talese, Pauline Kael, John McPhee (sort of the ‘anti-Wolfe’) and Hunter S.Thompson were from the Golden Age of magazine writing that we really won’t ever see, again.

By: CherieE1

CherieE1 — Tue, 29 May 2018 17:52:00 +0000

Great post/article, as usual. I truly enjoy reading your tips — I don’t actually publish anything, and most of what I write goes into relatively dry, repetitive, cookie-cutter proposals for projects. I’m always looking for ways to differentiate our company and write in an interesting, readable way — when I can tell a story and not worry about all the “factual” details of what we do and why we’re so great — like everyone else who is submitting a proposal is doing as well — it’s so much more fun to write and to read.