Ray Bradbury: A Study of His Works and Writing Advice

Ray Bradbury, best known for writing Fahrenheit 451, was born in Waukegan, Illinois in 1920 to Leonard and Ester Bradbury. Often categorized as a science fiction writer, Bradbury much prefers to be labeled as an author of fantasy, mystery, and horror fiction. Fahrenheit 451 is actually his only science fiction work according to Bradbury himself, despite joining the Los Angeles Science Fiction League at age 17 in 1937. Since he began writing as a young boy, Ray Bradbury never stopped. He published many works of many kinds and was a fan of reading and learning from anything he could.

Leonard Bradbury worked as a lineman and Ester Bradbury was a Swedish immigrant. Bradbury’s peaceful childhood was occasionally the inspiration for a few of his stories like Dandelion Wine (1957), All Summer in a Day (1959), and Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962). These are some of his most famous works and have resonated and inspired many people in Bradbury’s own time and with generations alive today.

From the age of 12, Bradbury decided that he would be a writer. He was infatuated with the idea of magicians and fantasy. In 1934, he joined his high school’s drama club and graduated in 1938. He couldn’t afford to go to college, as he grew up during the Great Depression, and instead spent a majority of his time reading and learning voraciously from his local libraries. He was always interested in many different subjects and educated himself through his own readings.

In 1939, Bradbury was able to create his own fan magazine, called Future Fantasia, and in 1941 he was able to professionally publish his very first work, Pendulum. This short story is described as a haunting story “of a man essentially trapped on a swing” and an “atmospheric tale of a scientist’s punishment and vicarious retribution against his tormentors.” In 1950, Bradbury published his first major work, The Martian Chronicles, which was then followed by Fahrenheit 451 just a few years later in 1953.

From these early years in his life until just around his time of death in June of 2012, Ray Bradbury spent at least a few hours each day writing. In his lifetime he published over 30 books, almost 600 short stories, and many essays, poems, and screenplays. There are interviews in which Bradbury gave towards the end of his life that are quite funny and prove that he was still sharp as a tack. It’s worth a look reading some of them.

Fahrenheit 451

This novel centers on a society that has banned and burns books. The main character, Guy Montag, is a firefighter and lives with his wife, Mildred. However, firefighters in Fahrenheit 451 are not on call to save people from fires, but instead are tasked with burning books and contraband due to the direct orders from the totalitarian governing body, simply known as “the Government.” Montag begins to start collecting books one at a time, reads them, and then sneaks them into other firefighters homes. Eventually, after being forced to burn down his own home, Montag narrowly escapes society by floating down the river and meets and group of runaways who think similarly to Montag.

These runaways have memorized or even own some books and pass along their knowledge to each other, while watching Montag’s society be destroyed by bombs. Montag and the runaways leave to create a new, hopeful society.

Fahrenheit 451 has had a huge impact on society. Much of the imagery found in the novel is a reflection of today. The large wall-sized TVs, the banning of books, citizens feeling downhearted from the government and the state of modern society, the increase of mindless consumption—and, really, the list could go on.

This society is focused on smothering individuality and in the same breath, diversity. They’ve gotten to a place where new ideas and individualism has caused too much of an uproar and the solution is to burn it, literally. There have been lots of essays and commentaries on the significance of Fahrenheit 451 and its hopeful tone at its conclusion. Many have compared the newly formed humanitarians in the novel to phoenixes rising from the ashes or the old society to the Dark Ages and the Renaissance. The significance of Fahrenheit 451 is seen in this insightful quote by writer Anirudh Parthasarathy, “Through addiction to technology, [people] lose all personal connection to nature, to people around them, and even to themselves. Their attention spans dwindle to the level that even conversations are too much to keep focus and they become completely apathetic.” When you read this quote, does it feel like you can picture a specific person that this describes? Because I did. This quote reminds me of the natural world influences that writers like Henry David Thoreau and Herman Melville held so close to their hearts.

It's very easy to see the way technology has affected our society, in both good and bad ways. Technology has improved many facets of our lives, but it has also provided us with many hurdles—which have impacted people of all ages, races, occupations, and cultures. I bet if you took a second to think of a friend or family member that is addicted to their phone or tablet, you could come up with them. These days, pretty much everyone falls into this category. Our whole lives are on our phones; it’s how we reach our friends, our family, read the news, look at social media—and even read books like Fahrenheit 451!

Ray Bradbury was deeply inspired by other writers from a young age with the likes of William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Edgar Rice Burroughs, H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, Robert Frost, Eudora Welty, and Thomas Wolfe.

Other Notable Works

Besides Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury is also known for The Martian Chronicles, Dandelion Wine, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and The Illustrated Man—of course there are many more of his publications that also hold significance. The Martian Chronicles, a set of interconnected, yet at the same time stand-alone, short stories published in 1950, illustrates the settling of humans on Mars with a very technologically advanced backdrop. The stories take place between 1999 and 2026. It is a warning about exploration and expansion into worlds that you are not familiar with and is praised for its accessible storytelling and lyrical prose.

Dandelion Wine, published in 1957, is also made up of interconnected short stories that are based on Bradbury’s own memories from when he lived in Illinois as a young boy. It has very nostalgic and summery writing and lets the readers mind practically wander through the stories. It is mixed with fantastical and horror elements and largely has the theme of “life” throughout.

Bradbury’s 1962 dark fantasy novel, Something Wicked This Way Comes, originated as a screen play, titled Dark Carnival. It was crafted from a short story Bradbury had written called “The Black Ferris,” and was presented to American dancer and actor, Gene Kelly. Something Wicked This Way Comes also stemmed from Bradbury’s love of carnivals. This horror novel focuses on good and evil, temptation, and at one point was Bradbury’s favorite novel he had written and hoped that his readers enjoyed it just as much as he did.

The Illustrated Man, a collection of 18 short stories which all have elements of the fantastical and science fiction. They are connected by the frame story—essentially a story within a story—by “The Illustrated Man.” Eventually developed in a 1969 film, this collection is made up of stories, all except one, that had previously been published elsewhere. Some of the most famous short stories being, “The Veldt,” “The Long Rain,” “Zero Hour,” and “The Rocket Man.”

Ray Bradbury’s Writing Advice

While it’s obvious that many authors like writing, it’s been a known fact that Bradbury loved it. He believed that if you really had that much trouble writing, that you no longer found pleasure or joy in, maybe it’s time to find some other way to spend your time. And this is some advice that definitely makes sense. The internet is rife with advice from Bradbury and some of it dates all the back to the 1970s. It seems like he loved to talk about writing and share his process with genuine, like-minded people.

Bradbury’s writing advice is typically found in interviews that he’s given or in speeches he’s had at universities. Bradbury also believed that a beginning writer should worry about how much their writing versus exactly what they are writing. He says to try and just get something completed on the page first before you worry about whether its quality writing or not. He considers this practice and does not believe that after an entire year of practice that everything you’ve written will turn out to be bad. There can be potential found in anything.

His thought process for creating an idea sort of looks like a web. There is a big idea or truth at the center and then smaller ones branch out towards the edges. These will eventually come naturally if your big idea is executed successfully. If—and when—you encounter writer’s block, that just means its time to switch directions. It’s your brain telling you that maybe you shouldn’t go that way, that you’ll have much more success if you decide with another topic or scene, or whatever you’re writing on.

Bradbury was a reader of pretty much everything. From literature to politics to anthropology, he read extensive topics, and urged everyone to do the same. He was a firm believer in learning as much as you could, from books, from essays, from poems, from whatever you could get your hands on. This is obvious after learning about the types of topics and societies he chose to feature in his published works, but it is refreshing hearing a writer practice what they preach!

In 1990, Bradbury published Zen in the Art of Writing, a musing collection of essays, spanning from 1961 to 1990, which are dedicated to his love of writing. This collection has been described as a must read for anyone who wants to write or wants to learn from one of the best. It’s been noted that Zen in the Art of Writing’s purpose is to make writers fall in love with their craft the way that Bradbury did. Bradbury wanted his peers to appreciate writing for what it is; the ultimate creative process that allows someone to freely express themselves in whatever way they choose. He makes it clear that the first draft is always going to be bad, but that everything has potential and that you should be proud of yourself for simply getting something on the page, something that can be worked with.

Discussion Questions

Feel free to answer the following questions in a comment below the article or independently in a journal of your choosing. These are meant to be fun and have no right or wrong answers. Enjoy!

· Do you agree or disagree with Ray Bradbury, that technology has completely taken over, and for the worse? Do you think technology has affected your writing? In what way? For better or worse?

· Have you read any of Bradbury’s works before? Fahrenheit 451 or Dandelion Wine? If you have, which ones resonated with you the most? If you haven’t, which one do you think you’d be the most interested in? Why?

· Ray Bradbury gave a lot of interesting advice to writers throughout his life. After reading this article, what advice do you think is the best? Is there some that you disagree with?

· If Ray Bradbury were still alive today, what modern author do you think he would be a fan of and why? Is there a modern author you can think of that he wouldn’t like? Why?

· After reading some of the advice that Ray Bradbury gave to fellow writers, what is one question you would ask him if given the chance? Based on what you know about him and his writing style, try to think of what his answer would be. Try to apply this answer to your own writing.