For one hundred days, I’m going to post a writing tip each day. I have a whole bookshelf full of writing books and I want to do some reading and increased studying of this valuable resource. This will help me keep track of anything I’ve learned, and help motivate me to keep going. If anyone has a favorite tip of their own to add, contact me. I’d love to put it up here.

Today’s tip – How To Make Your Fiction Have An Ultimate Meaning

Source – Technique In Fiction by Robie Macauley and George Lanning

Now you have arrived at the point where your sketchy map leaves off. Your guides, your equipment bearers, the other members of the climbing party have all stopped at various shelter points along the way. The peak of the mountain rises up in front of you. You are all alone. Your only comfort is the recollection that nobody ever reached the summit unless he went by himself.

This is the final paragraph of a long and very dense, technical book about writing. It’s filled with references to great writers and how they did what they did. There are extensive chapters on characterization, plot, setting, point of view… and all the other points and pitfalls of putting those exquisite lies onto a page.

And there it is at the end. After all that knowledge and teaching you are left starting at that mountain of a blank page all by yourself.