Writing Advice Quotes

A character is defined by the kinds of challenges he cannot walk away from.

Talent is cheap. What matters is discipline.

What I am trying to achieve is a voice sitting by a fireplace telling you a story on a winter’s evening.

Make it so good and so clear that it doesn't need any further explanation.

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.

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

The size of your audience is more important than the size of your book

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.

Don’t write like your mentors

There's no rule for better writing. It's best to make your own rules, and see what works best for you.

Writing is a solitary endeavor, being an author is not.

Let your eyes be the camera and your imagination be the set.

Whenever I write I always transport myself into the story to get a better glimpse to what I am capturing.

Writer's Block: making authors miserable since the Stone Age.

Any advice for how to be a successful author?""Yes. Don't be a woman. And be dead. And do both at the same time, if you can.

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

If you aren't willing to put your best work out there, write for yourself. Don't ever publish.

For me, art that's alive and urgent is about what it is to be a human being.

Daily life is always extraordinary when rendered precisely. We can unlock our lives with a pencil tip.

We don’t read to observe the character from a distance. We read to become the character and experience the conflicts and rewards they are experiencing.

Let at least one word of my writings impregnate the reader's heart.

While the goal of a book is to create a positive emotional experience for the reader, the goal of the opening is to set the stage, to pull the reader in.

If you can master the opening, you will be leaps and bounds ahead of the competition.

What are minnows but brief flashes? And what are thoughts? And how do you capture a brief flash, even for a second?

The key to high concept is that fresh twist. Make it a big one. Wow your reader. Force her to gasp when she comes to that part in your story.

First drafts don’t have to be perfect. They just have to be written.

I will continue to write moral stories in rhymed couplets. But I should be thrice a fool if I did it for aught but my own entertainment.

One idea to a sentence is still the best advice that anyone has ever given on writing.

A watched pot never boils." It's the same with success. So? Throw that burner on HIGH and just keep on cooking. Dinner will be ready soon.

On Writing: "A multitude of improbabilities can be forgiven as long as enough plausibility has been established.

One, don’t wait for inspiration, just start the damned thing. Two, once you begin, keep on until the end. How do you know how the story should begin until you find out where it’s going?

You have to finish things — that’s what you learn from, you learn by finishing things.

If someone wanted to be a runner, you don't tell them to think about running, you tell them to run. And the same simple idea applies to writing, I hope.

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!

Every wound is a word.

Education is a cycle of reading, thinking and writing.

It can be done. It will be done.

Believe in yourself and start achieving your dream. It waits for you on the other side of the publish button.

Honesty makes stories real and characters memorable. From there, taking them to where they need to go will be all the development they need.

Writing is like a lump of coal. Put it under enough pressure and polish it enough and you might just end up with a diamond. Otherwise, you can burn it to keep warm.

You have to put yourself out there as a writer, you can’t play it safe.

I write to shed my sacred sorrows.

You are learning to be an expert.

A writer seizes every opportunity to wonder.

To forget oneself-to lose oneself in the music, in the moment- that kind of absorption seems to be at the heart of every creative endeavor.

Question marks are shaped like hooks for a reason: they will hook the reader and drag them deeper into the story

The best advice is not to write what you know, it's to write what you like. Write the kind of story you like best- write the story you want to read.

Does rejection ever get any easier? Only if we decide not to invest emotion in the dismissal…

...people quote proverbs without realizing they're really in awe of the authority of their truth and the power of their expression...

...how many writers still dare compare a woman to Nature, like Campion? - there is a garden in her face - how lovely...