Tips for writers from Jorge Luis Borges

The great Jorge Luis Borges left us on June 14, 1986 but did so after a extensive and accomplished literary career. Essays, poetry, short stories, translations, etc., it can be said that Borges did everything for and for literature. With this article you will see that he also did what he could for future writers. We bring you a series of tips that the writer himself wrote about what a writer should avoid in literature.

According to Borges

In literature it is necessary to avoid:

1. All the overly non-conformist interpretations of works or famous people. For example, describe Don Juan's misogyny, etc.
2. All the grossly dissimilar character pairs or contradictory, such as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Sherlock Holmes and Watson.
3. The custom of characterize the characters by their manias, as does, say, Dickens.
4. In the development of the plot, resorting to outlandish games over time or with space, as Faulkner, Borges and Bioy Casares do.
5. In poetry situations or characters with whom I can identify the reader.
6. Characters likely to become Myths.
7. The phrases, the scenes intentionally linked to a certain place or certain time; that is, the local environment.
8. La chaotic enumeration.
9. Metaphors in general, and in particular visual metaphors. More specifically still, the agricultural, naval or banking metaphors. Absolutely inadvisable example: Proust.
10. El anthropomorphism.
11. The making of novels whose plot plot remember that of another book. For example, Joyce's Ulysses and Homer's Odyssey.
12. Write books that look like menus, albums, itineraries or concerts.
13. All that which can be illustrated. Anything that the idea of be turned into a movie.
14. In critical essays, any historical or biographical reference. Always avoid allusions to the personality or private life of the authors studied. Above all, avoid psychoanalysis.
15. All the domestic scenes in novels police; dramatic scenes in philosophical dialogues.
16. Avoid vanity, modesty, pedophilia, the absence of pedophilia, suicide.

What do you think of these tips?