Date:         Tue, 24 Mar 1998 20:40:18 +0100
From: Armando =?iso-8859-1?Q?Gasc=F3n?= <armando@ARRAKIS.ES>
Subject:      [WRITERS] WOW: The Decalogue of Quiroga

Horacio Quiroga is a well known writer from Uruguay/Argentina and wrote
stories and novels set mostly in the jungles and fields where he lived.
Anaconda is perhaps his best known character, the enormous serpent that
lives in the great rivers of South America, slithing through the masses of
floating, rotting vegetation to pounce on the unwary man or beast.
 The title of one of his collection of stories will give you an idea of his
subject matter: "Tales of love, madness and death".

 Quiroga wrote a "Decalogue for the Story Writer" that may be of interest to
you.=20
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        Horacio Quiroga: Decalogue for the Story Writer.

 I) Believe in the masters Poe, Maupassant, Kipling, Chejov as in God=
 Himself.

II) Believe that your art is an unreacheable peak. Do not dream of mastering
it. When you can do it, you will do it unawares.

III) Resist imitation as much as you can, but imitate if it is stronger than
yourself. More than anything else, the development of the personality is a
long patience.

IV) Have a blind faith not in your capacity for sucess, but in the ardour of
your desires. Love your art like you love your fianc=E9e, give it all your=
 heart.

V) Do not start writing without your knowing from the first word where you
want to go. In a well told story the first three lines are almost as
important as the last three.

VI) If you want to express with exactitude this circunstance: "A cold wind
blew from the river", in human speech there are no more words to say it.

VII) Do not use adjectives without need. It is useless to look for adhesives
to stick to a weak noun. If you find the exact one it will have by itself an
incomparable colour. But you have got to find it.

VIII) Take your characters in your hand and take them firmly to the end,
without seeing anything else in the road you drew for them. Do not look at
what they themselves can not or would not see.
 Do not betray the reader. A short story is not a novel without the rubble.

IX) Do not write under the hold of your emotions. Let them die and later
raise them to life. If you are able to revive it like it was, as an artist
you have made half of your trip.

X) Do not think in your friends when writing, or in the impact your story
will make. Tell it as if the story was only important to the small group of
your characters, of whom you could had been part.
 You can not breath life into your story otherwise.
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Armando Gasc=F3n

(((Alicante)Espa=F1a)Europa)