Best conflict & writing Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“I believe a good writer can write a good book with any sort of character, in any sort of setting, but I prefer to write about the outsider. It might just be because I've been one (or perceived myself to be one) for so much of my life. But the simple fact of being marginalized immediately brings conflict to a story before the narrative even begins, and that's gold for a writer because it means that your character already has depth before events begin to unfold.”

Writing Believe Mean Book Character Facts Stories Might I Believe Simple Events Conflict Gold Depth Setting Settings Narrative Outsiders Good Book Good Writers Marginalized

Author:Charles de Lint

“I don't know where the characters are going to go or what's going to happen. I know that something inevitable will happen. I know that they want certain things and they're in a certain room and they smell like this and they look like that. More often than not, an entropy creeps in that strangles me, and then the inevitable happens. I don't know if I have the ability to write an ending like My Fair Lady's, when everyone gets what they want after a few minor conflicts. If I tried to write that it would just be false. Or I'd have someone enter with a machine gun.”

Ifs Knows Want Writing Looks Character Happens Certain Ability Rooms Conflict Gun Fairs Machines Smell Inevitable Minors Creeps Entropy Machine Guns My Fair Lady

Author:Adam Rapp

“During the long drag of years before our youngest child went to school, my love for my family and my need to write were in acute conflict. The problem was really that I put two things first. My husband and children came first. So did my writing. Bump.”

Needs Writing Years Firsts Children Long Two Problem School Husband Conflict My Family Two Things My Husband Drag Bumps Youngest Child

Book:A Circle of Quiet

Source: A Circle of Quiet

“I don't think you should write something as long as a novel around anything that is not of the gravest concern to you and everybody else and for me this is always the conflict between an attraction for the Holy and the disbelief in it that we breathe in with the air of the times.”

Thinking Should Writing Long Novel Air Holy Conflict Concern Breathe Attraction Disbelief

Author:Flannery O'Connor

“Temperamentally, the writer exists on happenings, on contacts, conflicts, action and reaction, speed, pressure, tension. Were he acontemplative purely, he would not write.”

Thinking Writing Action Conflict Happenings Pressure Speed Reactions Contact Tension Thoughtful Action And Reaction

Book:The Mulberry Tree

Source: The Mulberry Tree

“I am asked to submit a 2-3 page synopsis to my publisher ahead of time, so by the time I begin writing, I have a fair idea of where the story will begin, the main conflicts, and the basic ending point. But that still leaves plenty of room for changes and discovery along the way.”

Way Writing Stills Ideas Stories Rooms Conflict Pages Discovery Fairs Plenty Submit Publishers Ahead Of Time Synopsis

Author:Julie Klassen

“Southern writing is regional: it includes dialect, settings, and cultural traditions from that region. However the themes and story conflicts are universal. My challenge is to write regional fiction without falling into the trap of nostalgia. There are important issues facing the south that I believe should be raised in the stories to make them contemporary, believable, and relevant to today's readers.”

“I write, and I feel how the correct and precise use of words is sometimes like a remedy to an illness. Like a contraption for purifying the air, I breathe in and exhale the murkiness and manipulations of linguistic scoundrels and language rapists of all shades and colors. I write and I feel how the tenderness and intimacy I maintain with language, with its different layers, its eroticism and humor and soul, give me back the person I used to be, me, before my self became nationalized and confiscated by the conflict, by governments and armies, by despair and tragedy.”

“I've been in a long and happy relationship for 22 years and it's never inspired me to write anything. It's too good - nothing to say. Problems, conflict, that's what makes for good stories.”

Writing Years Long Stories Problem Conflict Inspired Good Story Happy Relationship

Author:Emma Donoghue

“The need to express one's self in writing springs from a maladjustment of life, or from an inner conflict which the adolescent (or the grown man) cannot resolve in action.”

Men Needs Writing Self Action Conflict Spring Resolve Grown Man Inner Conflict

Author:Andre Maurois

“Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. He must learn them again.”

Men Writing Humans Heart Long Problem Today Young Spirit Bears Conflict Universal Tragedy Forgotten Young Man Sweat Agony Human Heart Good Writing

Author:William Faulkner

“I kind of came from the Townes Van Zandt school of throwing yourself off a cliff and then that's what you write about, and that rule number one of creative writing is you have to have conflict. But if you write about yourself mostly, then if you don't have conflict, then you create it. And the older I get, the more I realize that that's not a very smart way to do this. Not to say I'm the most self destructive person on earth, but it's easy to do.”

“[The Center for Industrial Progress'] model allows us to keep conflicts of interest to an absolute minimum as we do our research and writing. As for our relationship with the fossil fuel industry, it's the same as everyone else - they pay for our ideas, we never accept money to voice theirs.”

Writing Ideas Voice Interest Pay Accepting Progress Industry Conflict Models Research Absolutes Fuel Our Relationship Minimum Fossils Fossil Fuel Conflict Of Interest Research And Writing

Author:Alex Epstein

“There's a moment when you say, "Okay, I'm not going to become a dancer. I'm not going to become a painter." So in a sense, I ended up writing about those big conflicts that I felt.”

Writing Moments Bigs Felt Conflict Okay Painter Dancer

Author:Roselee Goldberg

“It was tricky [to write about Israelis], because everyone has an opinion about the Arab - Israeli conflict, and when I first started writing these stories, I was working for an Arab - Israeli human rights group. It was during the Second Intifada. It was this totally violent and intense time, and I think there's a part of me where I don't know how to write about that situation without getting my politics out of my messages, and that's something that was important for me not to do in this book.”

Thinking Knows Writing Firsts Humans Important Book Stories Situation Opinion Know How Rights Groups Conflict Messages Human Rights Violent Intense Israeli Tricky Arab Israeli Conflict

Author:Molly Antopol

“I was interested in writing something that has meaning in the larger context of global conflicts anywhere.”

Writing Conflict

Author:Ru Freeman

“I think the key to writing the truth of our existences, so much of this is being incubated online, is examining the conflicts and the messiness, our sometimes dividedness, dealing with gender and other hierarchies, and also our identities outside of them, deeply personal and yet somehow critical and circumspect.”

Thinking Writing Sometimes Existence Identity Keys Conflict Gender Critical Online Hierarchy Examining Messiness

Author:Kate Zambreno

“Characters exist in a flat line until we challenge them - sometimes they challenge themselves, sometimes they're challenged by other people, by nature, by robots, or by fungal infections in and around one's nether-country. Stories need conflict across the physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual spectra. Accidents, betrayals, cataclysm, desperation, excess - these are the letters in the alphabet of conflict.”

“Storytelling is an act of cruelty. We are cruel to our characters because to be kind is to invite boredom, and boredom in storytelling is synonymous with big doomy death-shaped death. So: be cruel to your protagonist. Rob him of something. Something important. Something he needs. A weapon. An asset. A piece of knowledge. A loved one. A DELICIOUS PIE. Take it away! Force him to operate without it. Conflict reinvigorates stale stories. New conflict, or old conflict that has evolved and grown teeth.”

Needs Writing Kind Important Character Stories Bigs Force Pieces Conflict Weapons Teeth Storytelling Cruelty Boredom Be Kind Assets Invites Loved Ones Pie Delicious Stale Protagonists

Author:Chuck Wendig

“This distraction is what one wants, which is very, very bad for the muse, because the muse hates not being in the line of sight. It's no longer an external conflict, like, oh, I have all these demands and I don't like them. The split is in the self. This may explain why, when I was in Santa Barbara before I went to Singapore and then now to Hong Kong, there was a writing moment when I was writing a poem a day. I had never done that before.”

Want Writing May Self Done Moments Hate Lines Demand Conflict Sight Distraction Splits Muse Santa Singapore Hong Kong Barbara Santa Barbara

Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim

“Emerging into writership, I have plans to discover my other themes, of nation and country, love and conflict, the body and transcendence, mutilation and wholeness, starvation and wicked plenty, and more. That is, I am already thinking ahead to more writing.”

Thinking Writing Country Body Nations Plans Conflict Plenty Theme Wicked Wholeness Transcendence Emerging Starvation Mutilation Country Love Thinking Ahead

Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim

“I began researching and writing what I intended as a book-length essay entitled Fascination and Liberation, exploring the question of whether there is a conflict between creativity and the Eastern form of enlightenment. I don't know if I'll ever finish that essay, because I had an experience, after I'd written two or three chapters, in which it seemed to me that my psychic antibodies decisively rejected Buddhism. Interestingly, the rejection felt as if it happened in Zen terms.”

“Novels are usually built on conflict, sometimes very, very difficult conflict. It's why men write war novels - because there you go, there's the conflict writ large.”

Men Writing War Sometimes Difficult Novel Conflict Built Why Me

Author:Anna Quindlen

“When I start writing, my unconscious, my conflicts, my thoughts all start to come up. So for me, writing is an exploration. I never know how my stories will end.”

Knows Writing Ends Stories Know How Conflict Come Up Unconscious Exploration My Thoughts

Author:Janet Fitch

“Incidentally, I am intrigued by how many European and Latin American writers expressed their political views in the columns they routinely wrote or write in the popular press, like Saramago, Vargas Llosa, and Eco. This strikes me as one way of avoiding opinionated fiction, and allowing your imagination a broader latitude. Similarly, fiction writers from places like India and Pakistan are commonly expected to provide primers to their country's histories and present-day conflicts. But we haven't had that tradition in Anglo-America.”

“I think the occupation of my poetry is akin to this desire to be many things at once - things that sometimes conflict. Regarding how the quotidian makes its way into the work, it's all of it, in a way. Like, when I'm writing poems, I'm just picking up scraps of whatever is happening around me - a geographical location, a love affair failed, the day the air felt like rope.”

Thinking Writing Sometimes Desire Conflict Affair Poetry Is Love Affair Scrap

Author:Dawn Lundy Martin

“I fell like a lot of times, when I write a song, it is coming from an introspective perspective that my faith always kind of factors. Faith is either part of what factors in to my decision making, or it is part of what factors into my fears and my doubts. It is either the positive or the negative part of it that is afflicting me during times of conflict, which is normally when you write songs about yourself when you find some sort of conflict or you are seeking some sort of resolution.”

Writing Kind Song Decision Doubt Perspective Conflict Negative Decision Making Resolution About Yourself Introspective

Author:Matt Thiessen

“I wrote the poems in Charms Against Lightning one by one, over almost a decade, and I did not write them toward any theme or narrative. But once I really got serious about putting together a book, I began to see that in fact there were themes across the poems, if only because my own obsessions had brought me back time and again to the same ground. I realized that any ordering of the poems would determine how those themes developed over the manuscript, and how the collection's dramatic conflicts were resolved.”

Writing Book Together Serious Conflict Determine I Realized Obsession Dramatic

Author:James Arthur

“Crime fiction is a genre for writing stories about people - about conflict, about guilt, about passion, about the human condition.”

People Writing Passion Crime Conflict Guilt Human Condition

Author:Jo Nesbo

“You want to make a representative selection, but at the same time, you want to give a sense of the whole project. I have this big conflict in my writing life that I'm trying to work out all the time.”

Giving Writing Trying Conflict Work Out Writing Life

Author:Barbara Hamby

“I've always preferred writing about grey characters and human characters. Whether they are giants or elves or dwarves, or whatever they are, they're still human, and the human heart is still in conflict with the self.”

Writing Humans Heart Stills Self Character Conflict Giants Grey Human Heart Dwarves

Author:George R. R. Martin

“I think all art comes out of conflict. When I write I am always looking for the dramatic kernel of an event, the junctures of people's lives when they go in one direction, not another.”

People Thinking Writing Art Events Conflict Dramatic One Direction Kernel Juncture

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“The accidents of my life have given me the ability to make stories in which different parts of the world are brought together, sometimes harmoniously, sometimes in conflict, and sometimes both - usually both. The difficulty in these stories is that if you write about everywhere you can end up writing about nowhere.”

Ifs World Writing Different Ends Sometimes Stories Together Given Ability Conflict Difficulty Accidents

Author:Salman Rushdie

“the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat”

Writing Humans Heart Problem Conflict Sweat Agony Human Heart Good Writing

Author:William Faulkner

“Conflict is the microscope of a book. When it's trained on a character, you see what's underneath the narratives of physical description. You see whether someone is strong or weak, principled or apathetic, heroic or villainous." (J.R. on writing the BDB series)”

Writing Book Character Strong Conflict Weak Series Narrative Description Heroic Microscopes Apathetic Principled

Author:J.R. Ward

“Yes. To write a novel is to risk my sanity. The deeper I get into the suffering and conflict of the characters, into the very situations and thoughts and feelings that make the novel worthwhile, the worse I feel, and the more likely I am to be severely depressed when the book is finished. There is no avoiding this: it is the result of attempting to tell all you know, to reach for the stars, to write what matters.”

Knows Feels Writing Book Matter Character Feelings Suffering Stars Results Situation Novel Risk Conflict Deeper Finished Sanity Worthwhile What Matters Avoiding Attempting Thoughts And Feelings

Author:Anne Rice

“The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself”

Writing Humans Heart Conflict Human Heart

Author:William Faulkner

“Introverts, in contrast, may have strong social skills and enjoy parties and business meetings, but after a while wish they were home in their pajamas. They prefer to devote their social energies to close friends, colleagues, and family. They listen more than they talk, think before they speak, and often feel as if they express themselves better in writing than in conversation. They tend to dislike conflict. Many have a horror of small talk, but enjoy deep discussions.”

“When we go to the Bible we should keep in mind that the basic principles of the Bible are taught by God, but written down by human beings deprived of modern day knowledge. So there is some fallibility in the writings of the Bible. But the basic principles are applicable to my life and I don't find any conflict among them.”

Should Writing Mind Humans Human Beings Principles Written Modern Taught Conflict Deprived Basic Principles Modern Day Fallibility

Author:Jimmy Carter

“You can't really discover the most interesting conflicts and problems in a subject until you've tried to write about them. At that point, one discovers discontinuities in the data, perhaps, or in one's own thinking; then the act of writing forces you to work harder to resolve these contradictions.”

Thinking Writing Problem Science Force Interesting Subjects Hard Work Conflict Harder Data Contradiction Resolve Most Interesting Work Harder Discontinuity

Author:Anthony F. C. Wallace

“Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it; anything but live for it.”

Men Inspirational Writing War Religion Dies Fighting Democracy Atheism Conflict

Book:L.P.

Source: L.P.

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Conflict Quotes