“The Da Vinci Code” Author Dan Brown Delivers Annual Assembly on Writing Tips to New Preps

Courtesy of @phillipsexeter

By SAM ALTMAN, AUDREY KIM, JINMIN LEE and JAYDEN OH

    On Sept. 24, author and Exeter alumnus Dan Brown ‘82 delivered his annual assembly speech to preps. After his speech describing his own writing journey that began at Exeter, Brown invited students on stage to take individual photos and sign books.

    Brown grew up in Exeter and, after attending and graduating from the Academy, became a bestselling novelist, writing internationally acclaimed thriller novels, such as The Da Vinci Code and Angel and Demons. Brown’s novels have sold more than 200 million books and have become popular TV shows and movies.

    “This is my 22nd year in a row coming back to Exeter to talk about writing,” commented Brown. “I find it inspirational because it reminds me of what it was like to be here at Exeter and be intellectually curious and excited to be creative. So, it’s a fun night for me.”

    Brown offered practical advice to help students write more successfully at Exeter. “It’s so often that we hear writing tips that are well-intentioned but not particularly helpful—’write what you know,’ ‘write from the heart,’ or ‘don’t give up.’ As a young writer, I found it far more inspiring to receive more specific advice about the craft of writing—something as simple as being reminded to write from all five of my senses or to write multiple drafts.”

    “A recurring point of his was to describe the scene using all of your senses because, on his first assignment, he said he only used sight. I think that’s a pretty common mistake because sight is the main sense of humans, so that was pretty interesting,” prep Eric Jin said.

    “Dan Brown gave me a lot of useful skills for writing, but also for other creative tasks,” added prep Larrly Lyu. “For example, your first draft isn’t always perfect, you have to improve over time. But that same principle can be applied to fields like art and music. I mainly took away just the sort of process that he takes when he writes — to absorb your surroundings and to really learn from them.”

    Jin continued, “Another thing that stood out to me is his preference to not use the third person point of view while writing essays. Whenever I listen to philosophical or existential topics, I have noticed that they all use the third person, and so when a book is written in the third person, it doesn’t have the same feel as if you were a first-person entity really experiencing it, because instead, it’s as if you were some omnipresent observer.”

    “I remember Dan Brown discussing his writing process and how much of it entailed making revisions and even throwing out drafts,” reminisced upper Sofia Chaudrey. “He mentioned how ‘good writers have broken delete keys’ and encouraged using very descriptive and strong words in writing. His speech was helpful in my writing at Exeter as the years passed, especially in my recent assignments as an upper.”

    During his speech, Brown also reflected on his initial challenges with his own writing. “We’ve all had the experience of reading our first draft and feeling like it’s not very good. It’s important we remember that being ‘not very good’ is the purpose of your first draft. It’s the stage in the process during which you create the rough pencil sketch over which you’ll paint your final masterpiece.”

    “My biggest takeaway was that even if you fail, it doesn’t necessarily mean that what you’re doing is bad,” prep Craig Lynch reflected. “He had a great example of this when he revealed to us that his first two books sold only 26 copies combined. But, when he hit success, those other books found their own audiences. So some people could think of it as a failure, but he stayed optimistic and ended up striking success even though it wasn’t immediate.”

    Lynch continued, “To get better at writing, he said, you need to do it over and over again. The reason that stuck out to me is because it relates to everything in life, and the more people say it, the more you realize it’s true.”

    Prep Charlie Kim agreed: “I liked how he explained how much he had to work for his books’ publication and how long the process took; seven years is a long time. His speech and his answers to questions were captivating.”

    Brown concluded by offering advice on how to keep your love for writing going, even when you’re forced to do a lot of it. “How do you keep the spark alive?” he mused. “A lot of people say write what you know. I say write what you want to know. Go out and research material that you find personally exciting, and then write about it. The process of sharing that information with others will help keep the process fresh. No matter how difficult it may feel to research an esoteric topic, it’s far more difficult to write about something you don’t care about.”