“Endings are better if you surprise yourself.”
I jotted that down in the little writer’s notebook I’ve started to keep. I wasn’t the only one scribbling things down while Franklin spoke. After the Q&A session Liz, a friend of mine I first met at SU's summer workshop, compared her notes with mine, and we swapped Tom Franklin quotes. Here are my favorite pieces of writing advice from the Tom Franklin pages of my notebook:
“Write till you get to the end.” No matter how awful your first draft is, you have to finish it before you can start fixing things in the second draft.
“Writing is revising.” You’re not going to get it right the first time.
“Don’t use words you can’t pour gravy over.” Avoid abstract language. Use concrete words that readers can really picture. Franklin’s example went like this: You can’t pour gravy over “hate,” but you can pour gravy over a hateful face.
“Character and plot are the same thing.” That sounds really deep, doesn’t it? But it makes sense. Like Dr. Bailey’s been saying, character-driven stories are the best. Franklin’s example was that a gas station holdup story starring Clint Eastwood is going to be very different from a gas station hold up starring Woody Allen.
