Here’s another little paragraph about writing that struck a chord with me, and that I’ve reread many times. This one’s not technically advice, but it kind of looks like advice if you squint. This is Gardner Dozois explaining the popularity of George R. R. Martin, from the introduction to the massive short story collection GRRM: A RRetrospective (later repackaged as Dreamsongs):
George has always been a richly romantic writer. Dry minimalism or the cooly ironic games of postmodernism so beloved by many modern writers and critics are not what you’re going to get when you open something by George R. R. Martin. What you’re going to get instead is a strongly-plotted story driven by emotional conflict and crafted by someone who’s a natural-born storyteller, a story that grabs you on the first page and refuses to let go. You’re going to get adventure, action, conflict, romance, and lust, vivid human emotion: obsessive, doomed love, stark, undying hatred, unexpected veins of rich humor … and something that’s rare even in science fiction and fantasy these days (let alone the mainstream) — a love of adventure for adventure’s sake, a delighting in the strange and colorful, bizarre plants and animals, exotic scenery, strange lands, strange customs, stranger people, backed by the inexhaustible desire to see what’s over the next hill, or waiting on the next world.
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