Writing Craft Quotes
Jesus--if Kilgore Trout could only write!" Rosewater exclaimed. He had a point: Kilgore Trout's unpopularity was deserved. His prose was frightful. Only his ideas were good.
You don’t create a diamond by rubbing it with fluffy bunny slippers. You need to apply pressure and heat. There are enough air-headed cheerleaders out there. We need more drill sergeants.
A really well-done first draft of a book bares your soul. The purpose of revision is so that everyone who reads the published version believes you were writing about theirs.
This is the secret to mastering any discipline: as you conquer one, you'll find it easier to tackle another.
Slaying dragons, melting witches, and banishing demons is all fun and games until someone loses a sidekick—then it’s personal. The bad guy isn’t just the “bad guy” anymore, he’s the BAD GUY!
I’ve come to the end of another book alive. At times like this I’m always at a loss for words.
My rule is never save bits. They get the way, and you don't think of anything new. Put 'em in. Make a big mess.
The paradox of writing is that you’re trying to use words to express what words can’t express.
You could say, in a way, that I'm not actually a writer, though perhaps I might be called a recorder? ... I just happen to be one of those holding the pen, that's all.
It was a miracle to me, this transformation of my acorns into an oak.
Chapter one is where you reach out your hand to the reader and say, "Come, let's have an adventure together.
All great movies have one thing in common: every frame of every scene could stand alone as a work of art. Why should it be different in a book?
An obscure flesh-and-blood Gascon, forgotten by History, transformed into a legendary giant by the novelist's genius
Don’t polish it forever, put it out there. At some point the changes aren’t improvements, they’re just changes.
Inspiration is the crèche of your brainchildren. If you don’t feed them, they will die, and never come back. So someone please think about the children!
People are suckers for the truth and they know it when they see it. Open your soul and they will stop and watch.
Dig deep and go where the pain and fear and joy are, and put it out there. The minute you shy away from pure honesty in your writing, you become a liar.
the focus one finds in the grammar books is on the wrong forms, on forms detached from the underlying (or overarching) form that must be in place before any technical terms can be meaningful or alive
One of the key secrets of great writing is knowing where to start and when to stop.
The reader is someone with an attention span of about 30 seconds.
When will someone write from the point of view of a joke, that is to say theway God sees events from above?
From school desks with inkwells and scratchy nibs on paper to sweaty finger prints on a tablet... technology progression yes... style?
...what draws us into a story and keeps us there is the firing of our dopamine neurons, signaling that intriguing information is on the way.
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.― Mark Twain, The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain
If any man wish to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts.
It can be said that one slip of point of view by a writer can hurt a story badly, and several slips can be fatal.' Stein on Writing
A blank page is no empty space. It is brimming with potential... It is a masterpiece in waiting -- yours.
All writers pen sad stories to garner sympathy, writing is after all for the abandoned of the society: the ink-leech, spewing black blood and sucking innocent souls.
I don’t just want a gripping story line. I shoot for the three dimensional literary Braille to a silent Scorsese movie
... yes I speak a different language - the dark fire of poetry - it flutters and gutters in tune with the mood...
If grammar is the skeleton of expression and usage the flesh and blood, then style is the personality.
You are not an "author, " you are a writer. If your books are still selling like hotcakes ten years after your demise, THEN you're an author.
During 30 years of earning my daily bread as a writer I have learned many lessons about our craft. The most significant of those lessons is that I still have many lessons to learn about out craft.
