In being real, there’s a chance that those events could happen to the everyday reader.Īnd that makes them more valued, and better received. Real stories tend to be more emotionally charged, and are easier for us to connect and empathize with. In short, Hemingway is illustrating that the best stories are those that really happened. ‘The good part of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life - and one is as good as the other.’ In his letters, Hemingway emphasized that drawing on real-life is a solid foundation for a successful story - that is, using your own experiences, or the experiences of others, as your main inspiration. These are all compiled in ' Ernest Hemingway on Writing '(1999). During his lifetime, Hemingway frequently wrote letters to editors, fellow artists and friends about the craft of writing.
#ERNEST HEMINGWAY EDITOR HOW TO#
With his extensive life and writing experiences, Ernest Hemingway can offer us important and invaluable tips on how to improve our writing. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. His economical writing style (also named ‘the iceberg theory’) has had an influential impact on the world of writing - and solidified him as one of the greatest fiction writers of all time. ‘A Farewell to Arms,’ based on a case study of an American ambulance officer’s disillusionment in the war.‘For whom the Bell Tolls,’ based on his time as a reporter during the Civil War in Spain.
Hemingway used his early experiences to shape what he wrote, and how he wrote it. Upon his return, he became a reporter for American newspapers and was sent back to Europe - where he reported on notable events such as the Greek revolution, and the Spanish Civil War. Born in Illinois, Ernest Hemingway began his writing career in a newspaper office at just 17 years old, but had to put his writing on hold when America entered the First World War.