Advice Quotes
Deal with your readers that theyare smart, and write a language thatsuits their intelligence.- How to write the best story-
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.
Writing a full length novel is very much like driving a car with snakes in your pants—you just never know what’s going to happen. -- James Scott Bell
Never say you can't be a writer or a script writer, remember how well, characters in your dreams said their dialogues.
I tell everyone who asks me about writing...almost everyone has an idea for a book, and some even have a great ending, but it's that 290 or so pages in between that are tough!
...my writing is a wild mustang - more thunderous than a lightning storm -and all my skill which I call art, is devoted to simply staying on...
Writer's block, for me, is merely a way of saying "I'm too lazy to sit down and give it the proper time." I want to be a progressive writer, not a lazy one.
What I am trying to achieve is a voice sitting by a fireplace telling you a story on a winter’s evening.
Essential characteristic of the really great novelist: a Christ-like all-embracing compassion.
When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell the students to make their characters want something right away even if it's only a glass of water.
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.
Write about only three things: what you love, what you hate, and what you’re deeply conflicted about.
I hate dialect. It gets in the way. If there is a need for dialect, you can render it quite easily by reproducing the rythm of that form of speech. Then you don't need to bother with silly spellings
...if you want your own distinctive voice, you first have to become someone...
Storytelling is in our DNA. It's what differentiates humans from other species: we don't just communicate information. We tell stories.
...it's good to know wave and particle alpha code, but more than that, the writer must go to the heart of life ...
Keep trying, especially at first. It can be very discouraging if your submissions keep being rejected by a publisher, but if your work is what people want to read, you should get there eventually!
There's no such thing as the middle of nowhere. Something is happening everywhere. You just have to find the story in it.
Let your emotions guide your hand to the paper and watch how your sorrows can turn into beauty. For tears relieve your body but writing relieves your heart.
The only prophecy the artist can make with confidence is that he and his message will be misunderstood by a world that values all the wrong things.
Always carry with you a pen and a notebook or a journal to write the thoughts that flashes in a moments.
You’re allowed to manipulate the environment, but not the character.
For every idea that's been done to DEATH, there's a child being BORN who hasn't read it yet. Don't kill your dragons.
If you want to be a writer, you have to keep writing, all the time, and when you're not writing, be thinking about and planning writing.
I shall be as brief as I can, for it is not by piling up detail that I hope to achieve my picture, but by putting the emphasis where I think it belongs.
Repeat the mantra: Writing is when I make the words. Editing is when I make them not shitty.
Park your ego and listen to your readers. They can be your best friend or your worst enemy. But chances are you'll learn something from them.
If you aren't willing to put your best work out there, write for yourself. Don't ever publish.
You will do well not to write for money, not because you won't get rich doing it, but because writing fueled by that sort of motivation becomes dull and lifeless and mediocre.
The shock of recognition is a moment of excitement that shakes the soul. It may be hard to describe, but like other forms of love, you will know it when you feel it