167 quotes found
“Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched. Prefer the concrete word to the abstract. Prefer the single word to the circumlocution. Prefer the short word to the long. Prefer the Saxon word to the ...”
“You cherry-pick events that are relevant to the story question and construct a gauntlet of challenge (read: the plot) that will force the protagonist to put his money where his mouth is. Think bapt...”
“Never say you can't be a writer or a script writer, remember how well, characters in your dreams said their dialogues.”
“Problem, purpose, conflict, goal. Use them. Think about them while you are in the planning phase of your novel; keep these elements at the back of your mind to guide you while you write. When you h...”
“When I am grown up I shall carry a notebook—a fat book with many pages, methodically lettered. I shall enter my phrases.”
“Love the work: the grind, the dreaming, the distracted not-sleep, all of it. It’s the one thing in the job that will always be there, and the real pleasure in the profession. Everything else is luck.”
“Perhaps the hardest thing in all literature— at least I have found it so: by no voluntary effort can I accomplish it: I have to take it as it comes— is to write anything original. And perhaps the e...”
“Develop the skill of writing to avoid errors but if you do make them, don’t be demotivated”
“It's a great lesson about not being too precious about your writing. You have to try your hardest to be at the top of your game and improve every joke you can until the last possible second, and th...”
“Ten good lines out of four hundred, Emily—comparatively good, that is—and all the rest balderdash—balderdash, Emily.""I—suppose so," said Emily faintly.Her eyes brimmed with tears—her lips quivered...”
“Just get it down on paper, and then we’ll see what to do with it.”
“The most basic rule of editing is that if you can’t bear to read it, no one else can either. So when you find yourself skimming, commit murder.”
“You can only write regularly if you’re willing to write badly… Accept bad writing as a way of priming the pump, a warm-up exercise that allows you to write well.”
“Don’t expect the puppets of your mind to become the people of your story. If they are not realities in your own mind, there is no mysterious alchemy in ink and paper that will turn wooden figures i...”
“The unwritten novel has a basilisk’s stare.”
“I think if a writer is being honest they’d admit to a file full of a dozen or more stories that are all started to varying degrees. They’re like the kid who wants to be a firefighter and a police o...”
“Don’t listen to any advice from anybody who has fewer published bestsellers than you, or anybody with more bestsellers than you. Or anybody with the exact same number of bestsellers as you. Don’t l...”
“Here’s my advice: you hold in your heart everything you need to know to write anything your story needs written. Dig deep and go where the pain and fear and joy are, and put it out there. The minut...”
“In fact, “talent” is as common as mud; what’s rare is the motivation to sit down and actually do something with one’s talent, the discipline to do it regularly, and the persistence to stick with it...”
“Repeat the mantra: Writing is when I make the words. Editing is when I make them not shitty.”
