The largest website for English phrases and quotes

The largest website for English phrases and quotes

Tag: writing, writing-craft

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

However great a man’s natural talent may be, the act of writing cannot be learned all at once.

writing, writing-craft

In my opinion it is not the writer’s job to solve such problems as God, pessimism, etc; his job is merely to record who, under what conditions, said or thought what about God or pessimism. The artist is not meant to be a judge of his characters and what they say; his only job is to be an impartial witness. I heard two Russians in a muddled conversation about pessimism, a conversation that solved nothing; all I am bound to do is reproduce that conversation exactly as I heard it. Drawing conclusions is up to the jury, that is, the readers. My only job is to be talented, that is, to know how to distinguish important testimony from unimportant, to place my characters in the proper light and speak their language.

writing, writing-craft

What makes a writer successful is not money or fame (though both are nice) … it’s that in being true to her or himself, the words were able to connect to a reader’s heart.

writing, writing-craft

Colson Whitehead

Most people say, “Show, don’t tell,” but I stand by Show and Tell, because when writers put their work out into the world, they’re like kids bringing their broken unicorns and chewed-up teddy bears into class in the sad hope that someone else will love them as much as they do.

writing, writing-craft

Allison K. Williams

Rejection sucks. It sucks every time, whether it’s a big suck or a little suck. But it’s part of the process. It’s part of being a writer. It’s a badge that says ‘I’m serious about this, and I’m sending out my work.

writing, writing-craft

The best lie is the one that has an element of truth, so it’s good to include something real in your fiction.

writing, writing-craft

We slip into a dream, forgetting the room we’re sitting in, forgetting it’s lunchtime or time to go to work. We recreate, with minor and for the most part unimportant changes, the vivid and continuous dream the writer worked out in his mind (revising and revising until he got it right) and captured in language so that other human beings, whenever they feel like it, may open his book and dream that dream again.

writing, writing-craft

You can’t have good ideas unless you have lots of ideas.

writing, writing-craft

I just write whenever I can.

writing, writing-craft

Writing novels is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, including digging irrigation ditches.

writing, writing-craft

There will be pages. Lots and lots of pages. Most of the pages will have letters on them, and a vast majority of these letters will be in the Roman alphabet.

writing, writing-craft

William S. Wilson

You might say as you tirelessly said of my stories, at least of the adjectives, that I should render the evidence, not render the verdict… (“Conveyance: The Story I would Not Want Bill Wilson To Read”)

writing, writing-craft