Look for the clutter in your writing and prune it ruthlessly. Be grateful for everything you can throw away. Reexamine each sentence you put on paper. Is every word doing new work? Can any thought be...
I recommend writing standing up from time to time. It's easier to dance when you finish writing.
There are a lot of ways for a novelist to create suspense, but also really only two: one a trick, one an art.
Murphy is a writer's best friend, but you have to keep an eye on him, or he'll steal the silver.
A little talent is a good thing to have if you want to be a writer. But the only real requirement is the ability to remember every scar.
Life has a vendetta against writers. It does everything in it's power to get in the way of our craft. Maybe it thinks we embellish too much?
I wanted to be a politician and a movie star. But I was born a writer. If you're born that, you can't change it. You're going to do it whether you want to or not.
On the whole, I think you should write biographies of those you admire and respect, and novels about human beings who you think are sadly mistaken.
Lie naked on the table, and let them cut. Criticism is surgery, and humility is the anesthetic that allows you to tolerate it. In the end, the process will make you a stronger, more flexible, and trul...
I admire the person who can write it right off. Mencken once said that a person who thinks clearly can write well. But I don't think clearly--too many thoughts bump into one another. Trains of thought...
Nothing is wasted when you are a writer. The stuff that doesn't work has to be written to make way for the stuff that might; often you need to take the long way around. And if you're writing memoir yo...
Does any program really improve anybody, as much as simply identifying them? And, after identifying them, not ruining them?
There are many rules of good writing, but the best way to find them is to be a good reader.
If you are serious, and you want to make a living as an author, then you need to hustle. Period. If you can't make that quality, then you need to concentrate on your craft and practice more. One other...
I should be writing ...
Find the problem, find the story.
Writers get ideas all day every day. The FedEx guy delivers a package from Sears and the writer is thinking how it could actually be a ticking time bomb.
The only 'ironclad rules' in writing fiction are the laws of physics and the principles of grammar, and even those can be bent.
Sometimes you have to tell a a bunch of lies to get at the truth.
Nobody reads a book to get to the middle.
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