Novel Writing Quotes

Novel Writing Quote of the day

I began writing 'Matterhorn' in 1975 and for more than 30 years I kept working on my novel in my spare time, unable to get an agent or publisher to even read the manuscript.

Novel writing should never be confused with journalism. Unfortunately, in the case of Primary Colors, a fair number of journalists confused.

First steps are always the hardest but until they are taken the notion of progress remains only a notion and not an achievement.

All writing is an act of self-exploration. Even a grocery list says something about you; how much more does a novel say?

There is, in fact, not much point in writing a novel unless you can show the possibility of moral transformation, or an increase in wisdom, operating in your chief character or characters.

Writing a novel is like working on foreign policy. There are problems to be solved. It's not all inspirational.

Novel writing wrecks homes.

Novel writing is far and away the most exhausting work I know.

Writing a short story is like having a short intense affair, whereas writing a novel is like a long rich marriage.

Anthropological fieldwork is so much like writing a novel. You don't know what the hell is going on.

Writing a novel is actually searching for victims. As I write I keep looking for casualties. The stories uncover the casualties.

Writing a novel is like building a wall brick by brick; only amateurs believe in inspiration.

When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.

The reality of a serious writer is a reality of many voices, some of them belonging to the writer, some of them belonging to the world of readers at large.

I really want to write a novel. I also want to learn to play the mandolin.

I'm always telling myself as I write that I'm not really writing a novel; I'm just going to fool around with a character or an idea.

Writing a novel proved to be the hardest, most self-analyzing task I had ever attempted, far worse than an autobiography: and its rewards were greater than I expected.

The first thing you have to consider when writing a novel is your story, and then your story - and then your story!

Writing a story is kind of like surfing, as opposed to the novel, where you use a GPS to get somewhere. With surfing, you kind of jump.

However, the difficulties and pleasures of the writing itself are similar for a novel with a historical setting and a novel with a contemporary setting, as far as I'm concerned.

I would recommend the short story form, which is a lot harder to write since you have to be so careful with words, until there is plenty of time to doodle through a novel

I am writing my second novel for children for Simon and Schuster.

Short-story writing requires an exquisite sense of balance. Novelists, frankly, can get away with more. A novel can have a dull spot or two, because the reader has made a different commitment.

Writing a novel is like trying to solve a very long mathematical equation. Changing anything can change everything else.

I'm writing another novel and I know what I'm going to do after, which may be something more like this again, maybe some strange mixture of fiction and non-fiction.

I'm writing a novel about two actresses who go to New York, because that's what I know about. One has lost touch with reality, disappears and is picked up by a man.

If I really considered myself a writer, I wouldn't be writing screenplays. I'd be writing novels.

Writing a novel is like making love, but it's also like having a tooth pulled. Pleasure and pain. Sometimes it's like making love while having a tooth pulled.

The writing in Mission to Paris, sentence after sentence, page after page, is dazzling. If you are a John le Carr fan, this is definitely a novel for you.

Novels give you the matrix of emotions, give you the flavour of a time in a way formal history cannot.

I might just write a novel next. I don't know!

Writing novels takes up about 100% of my available working time.

Writing a novel is like heading out over the open sea in a small boat. It helps, if you have a plan and a course laid out.

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. Sometimes you run over a drunk who's lain down and fallen asleep on the warm pavement. I mean, do you keep going, or what?

If writing a novel is a year's exile to a foreign country, writing a short story is a weekend spent somewhere exotic. They're much more like vacations, more exciting and different, and you're off.

When one starts writing a book, especially a novel, even the humblest person in the world hopes to become Homer.

Writing a novel that works is an extremely difficult thing to do. It requires a level of skill and dedication that always surprises me.

Writing a novel in general is like trying to reach a mountain top you'll never quite reach - so you try again and maybe get a little closer.

I started writing when I was a journalist. But every time I sat down to write a novel or a story, I ended up writing about myself, which was incredibly annoying and self-involved.

Yes, writing a novel, my boy, is like driving pigs to market - you have one of them making a bolt down the wrong lane; another won't get over the right stile.

I won't read novels while writing novels.

Novel writing is solitary work.

What we know about writing the novel is the novel.

Novel-writing is the only place where someone who would have liked to do anything can still do that vicariously.

Not getting bored of my own story and/or character is one of the main struggles I have had with novel writing, and I have put to bed big chunks of work that just didn't sustain my interest.

Novel writing is a kind of private pleasure, even if nothing comes of it in worldly terms.

I suppose I started writing seriously at 16 years old. I thought I wrote a novel at 16 and sent it to New York! They sent it back because it wasn't novel.

I binge write. I think it's because I started seriously writing by participating in National Novel Writing Month, an online-based challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days.

After writing each novel, I would spend days poring over suggestions from my editor.

Nothing beats novel writing because it's complete expression of you. You just control everything. Not even a movie director has that level of control.