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The 9 Commandments of Travel Writing
Aspiring travel writers take note: Pico Iyer (Sun After Dark, Video Night in Kathmandu) has compiled a list of nine "commandments of travel writing." But don't consider them your bible; each rule in travel writing is made to be defeated, "and is routinely broken by most of the travel classics," Iyer notes. Even if writing about your journey is an afterthought, the commandments remind you of the spirit of travel itself: "... the first thing any traveler learns is that every rule is made to be broken; if you stick to the guidebook, or the itinerary, you'll come home wondering if you ever left."Here's a sneak peak at the nine commandments:
- The ideal travel book is a quest, a question that's never answered...
- The travel writer is much less traveler than writer...
- The travel book must teach you something - ideally by highly unorthodox means...
- The travel book, like the traveler, often travels incognito...
- The travel writer's place is on the threshold, one eye turned toward the reader, one toward the subject...
- The travel writer need not go far at all...
- The great travel writer takes in every aspect of what is happening and changing right now, the better to see what is changeless...
- The true travel writer does not just listen to a place but talks back to it; he's drawn to it by compulsion...
- In the end, every great travel book is about a journey inside...
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