Arts & Entertainment, Writing
Closing
Lesson time 03:11 min
You've been given the tools to help write your next book. Now what?
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Teaches Writing
James teaches you how to create characters, write dialogue, and keep readers turning the page.
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I am peculiar, obviously, and that peculiarity has had its rewards. So I share things with you and you have to pick what's going to be relevant to you. I think, and I said this to somebody yesterday, that the things that seem the dumbest to you right now, the most foreign, that I'm just dead wrong, those are the things you really want to pay the most attention to and really analyze whether they-- because those are the things that are farthest from what you're doing now, and maybe the most interesting, and maybe the most beneficial. The things that seem like oh my God, that's really, that wouldn't work for me, or that's crazy. There's nothing I'm going to tell you that's crazy. That I will guarantee. I am crazy, but what I do is sane. People get too into, this is the way it's been, here's the rules of writing, here's the rules of literature, here's the rule-- who said? Really God does not come down and lay down, here are the 20 commandments of writing a story. And just because it's been done in a certain way forever does not necessarily mean it's right. And also means don't walk away from what's been done, but also you don't have to follow it blindly. Things change. We do new shit. Why am I doing this? I like the feeling of doing something that's going to help people. I just, I like giving pleasure to other people, whatever. That's not the worst thing in the world. There was a story in the San Francisco Chronicle at one point and a whale was kind of hopelessly trapped in a bunch of fishing lines and crab traps and whatever, and it was decided that the only way that they could get the whale out was a bunch of rescuers had to literally swim out there and start clipping away with little scissors all of these lines and ropes. And it took them half a day to get this whale loose and what happened is the whale did not swim out to sea, rather the whale went around, literally, from person to person, these rescuers, nudged them, and these people who rescued said that they would never forget that experience and it changed their lives. And that I think is what it's about to give to somebody else. And that's what really moves me. That kind of thing that I'm going to be out there and to some extent for some of you, it's what I'm saying will change your lives and free you from whatever's stopping you from writing your books or stopping you from writing them successfully. And that maybe you'll nudge me a little bit before you swim back out to sea and become famous.
About the Instructor
James Patterson, the author of 19 consecutive No. 1 New York Times bestsellers, reveals his tricks of the trade. In his first online writing class, he guides you from the start to the finish of your book.
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James Patterson
James teaches you how to create characters, write dialogue, and keep readers turning the page.
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