43 quotes found
“Okay. This has to be a credible threat. Ergo, we have to have seen (and heard about) the real damage Randall has done to Jamie thus far; we have to be in no doubt whatever that hed do real damage t...”
“But it wouldnt have half the power of a story in which Jamie and Claire truly conquer real evil and thus show what real love is. Real love has real costsand theyre worth it. Ive always said all my ...”
“To some extent, emotions are universal and can be treated that way; no matter what the participants’ orientation or preference, they have sex for the same reasons and can experience the same array ...”
“Men have external genitalia, while women have internal genitalia. This simple difference makes a lot of difference in how they write about themselves—and how you might write about your characters. ...”
“There’s a little trick called the Rule of Three: if you use any three of the five senses, it will make the scene immediately three-dimensional.”
“Good sex scene is about the exchange of emotions, not bodily fluids”
“If you can’t look a line of dialogue in the face and say exactly why it’s there—take it out or change it.”
“Don’t go overboard in avoiding “said.” Basically, “said” is the default for dialogue, and a good thing, too; it’s an invisible word that doesn’t draw attention to itself.”
“You want to anchor the scene with physical details, but by and large it’s better to use sensual details rather than overtly sexual ones.”
“You don’t need to know the purpose as you write, but when you read over something you’ve written, you should be able to point to any given element—be that a line of dialogue, a descriptive phrase, ...”
“As a rule of thumb, four consecutive lines of dialogue is about as much as you want to have without a tag.”
“Don’t let characters talk pointlessly—they only talk if there’s something to say.”
“Dialogue doesn’t take place in a vacuum. Dialogue is contradictory, in that it can either speed up or slow down a passage.”
“Pointing out the emotion in a scene is like laughing at your own jokes.”
“If there’s true emotional content in a situation between characters, all you do is reveal it.”
“Watch a good movie sometime without reference to what’s happening but only with attention to how it was photographed; you’ll see the change of focus—zoom in, pan out, close-up on face, fade to blac...”
“Just as an effective advertisement or page layout includes a lot of white space, a powerful scene requires immense restraint. Show things as simply as possible.”
“Jamie’s viewpoint is expressed almost entirely in metaphor: If she was broken, she would slash him with her jagged edges, reckless as a drunkard with a shattered bottle. He’s using physical languag...”
“For a different woman, a different relationship, a different situation, gentleness might have been the proper, the only approach—but not for this woman, in these circumstances. The only thing that ...”
“One of the general patterns of good (i.e., striking and memorable) writing is the effect of repetition. If you use a certain element—a plot device, an image, a noticeable phrase—once, readers may o...”
