Of course you could ask the Internet, and it would come back with all kinds of writing advice. If you asked your favorite AI bot, you could learn to write just like your favorite AI bot. You may have noticed, however, that AI bots tend to write for writers, not for readers. That is to say, we have trained them to produce the text that people who want to push some information out into the world want them to produce; we have not trained them to produce the text that readers who want something to read would want to read. This is the natural result of the way they are used: they get all their feedback from the people who use them to produce text, and none from the people who have to read the text they produce.
You could ask Reddit for writing advice, and then you would get advice from real people. In the same way, you could ask your hairdresser how to fix your plumbing problem, and she might have some ideas.
But let us wander back in time to an age that knew no Internet. If we go back a century or more, we may even meet some people we know.
How would you like to have Edith Wharton teach you the art of fiction? Or, if that is not to your taste, how about Ring Lardner? Lardner will admit
that you can’t find no school in operation up to date, whether it be a general institution of learning or a school that specializes in story writing, which can make a great author out of a born druggist.
But a little group of our deeper drinkers has suggested that maybe boys and gals who wants to take up writing as their life work would be benefited if some person like I was to give them a few hints in regards to the technic of the short story, how to go about planning it and writing it, when and where to plant the love interest and climax, and finally how to market the finished product without leaving no bad taste in the mouth.
Perhaps the best advice, however, comes not from the great authors but from the successful hacks. Edith Wharton was too much a born novelist: she knew by instinct how to bring out the story that had formed in her brain, and instinct is incommunicable. You may find her teaching a little impractical. The hack who depends for his living on selling a certain number of stories every month, however, does not wait for inspiration. He has a method, and it works, and he can break it down into steps.
As you might guess, this little essay serves as an introduction to another page in the Eclectic Library. We have gathered together a good collection of writing advice, and no matter what kind of writer you want to be, you are likely to find something there that will help you be it. And, of course, if you are already a successful writer, then this collection will give you much to sneer at, and sneering is good exercise that keeps the mind supple and limber.