Best fiction & writing Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 5

“Speech recognition is utterly crap for writing fiction. If you try reading a novel aloud you'll soon figure out why - written prose style is utterly unlike the spoken word.”

Ifs Writing Trying Reading Fiction Novel Written Style Figures Speech Recognition Prose Crap Writing Fiction Spoken Word

Author:Charles Stross

“Fiction is about human beings, first and foremost. (It's not impossible to write fiction with no human protagonists, but it's very hard to keep the reader interested ...)”

Writing Firsts Humans Hard Human Beings Fiction Impossible Reader Protagonists

Author:Charles Stross

“When I write fiction, I create characters whose views are not my own, and I allow them to be eloquent in defense of their, not my, views.”

Writing Character My Own Views Fiction Defense Eloquent

Author:Orson Scott Card

“I did not always know I would be a writer. Until I had a room of my own, I did not write much at all - no more than any other child who read a lot of books. I began to write fiction and poetry when I first had a room that was truly my own with a door that shut and some measure, however fragile, of privacy.”

Knows Writing Firsts Children Book Would Be My Own Rooms Fiction Doors Privacy Fragile

Author:Marge Piercy

“My writing process is ritualized and monotonous, but there's no other way to get the job done. All other fiction writers I've met say the same thing.”

Way Writing Done Jobs Process Fiction Mets Writing Process Monotonous Fiction Writers Get The Job Done

Author:Douglas Coupland

“In fiction writing, I would say there are several different strands that have been woven through my own writing, and each influenced by a different group of writers.”

Writing Has Beens Different My Own Fiction Groups Woven Fiction Writing Strands

Author:Alan Lightman

“Another strand of my writing is the importance of the idea. If you think about fiction writing as a spectrum, where at one end of the spectrum in the infrared, are the story tellers, and the people for whom creation of wonderful characters and telling a good story is the most important thing.”

People Ifs Thinking Writing Important Ideas Ends Character Stories Fiction Wonderful Creation Importance Important Things Spectrum Good Story Fiction Writing Strands Infrared

Author:Alan Lightman

“In fiction, I tend to write fairly realistic dialogue-not always, and it tends to vary from book to book. But in many books, there is a colloquialism of address. The characters will speak in a quite idiosyncratic way sometimes.”

Way Writing Book Sometimes Character Speak Fiction Dialogue Addresses Realistic Vary

Author:Don DeLillo

“I think poetry is the best thing I do. It's certainly the purest. I seem to switch gears without too much trouble. Non-fiction is in many ways the easiest to write.”

Thinking Way Writing Seems Fiction Too Much Trouble Best Things Poetry Is Non Fiction Gears

Author:Erica Jong

“You have to get inside the people you are writing about. You have to go below the surface. And that's to a very large degree what all writers are doing - they're trying to get below the surface. Whether it's in fiction or poetry or writing history and biography. Some people make that possible because they write wonderful letters and diaries. And you have to sort of go where the material is.”

People Writing Trying Fiction Wonderful Materials Degrees Letters Surface Biographies Diaries Below The Surface Writing History

Author:David McCullough

“In fiction writing ideas have to be handled extremely carefully. You can't let your characters just be mouthpieces for your ideas. They have to live and breathe on their own.”

Writing Ideas Character Fiction Breathe Fiction Writing Mouthpiece

Author:Alan Lightman

“That's the wonderful thing about drama and writing and fiction: it's this wonderful shared experience that we all have. We can see into each other's lives.”

Writing Fiction Wonderful Drama Wonderful Things Shared Experiences

Author:Uma Thurman

“Well, it's my voice, so it's more accessible that way, and there are also all sorts of things like plot and timelines that are already known entities, so for me, it's very different from writing fiction.”

Way Writing Wells Different Voice Fiction Known Plot Entity Writing Fiction Timelines

Author:Alice Sebold

“Characters more or less present themselves to me. I don't know their origins. I think if I did, if I seemed to myself to fabricate them, I could not induce suspension of disbelief in myself in the way writing fiction requires.”

Ifs Thinking Knows Way Writing Character Fiction Disbelief Writing Fiction Suspension Fabricate Suspension Of Disbelief

Author:Marilynne Robinson

“Fiction must compete with first-rate reporting. If you cannot write a story that is equal to a factual account of battle in the streets or demonstrations, then you can't write a story.”

Ifs Writing Firsts Stories Fiction Streets Battle Equal Accounts Rate Demonstration Factual

Author:John Cheever

“I have friends who are capable of writing a very rough draft and then going back and embroidering - they're sort of the cathedral builders of fiction. I never really know what I'm doing, and all my pleasure's on the level of the line. It's a weird way to move forward. It's kind of like a way to caterpillar your way through these great woods. The best ones, whatever I feel like I'm writing about, some other secret thing will begin to come into focus.”

Knows Way Feels Writing Kind Moving Lines Pleasure Levels Secret Fiction Focus Capable Woods Moving Forward Rough Builder Cathedrals Caterpillars Rough Drafts

Author:Karen Russell

“I never wanted to be an editor. I never wanted to be a boss. I just wanted to write, and it didn't make any difference whether it was fiction or nonfiction or short stories or whatever. I just - that's what I was destined to do.”

Writing Stories Wanted Differences Fiction Boss Editors Short Story Nonfiction Destined

Author:Frank Deford

“I remember reading an interview with a writer who said that in nonfiction if you have one lie it sort of messes it up. But in fiction the real details give you so much more credibility, because people do so much research just to write fiction. In fiction you're trying to recreate something lifelike.”

People Ifs Giving Writing Trying Said Real Remember Lying Reading Fiction Research Details Mess Interviews Nonfiction Credibility

Author:Edwidge Danticat

“After writing fiction for so long, I like the discovery element of nonfiction, in the sense that when you find the right information, it feels like gold.”

Feels Writing Long Fiction Information Elements Discovery Gold Nonfiction Writing Fiction

Author:Edwidge Danticat

“I feel like I'm almost ready to write fiction about the border. But even after 10 years of writing nonfiction about it, I don't think I know quite enough to do it right.”

Thinking Knows Feels Writing Years Enough Fiction Ready Borders Nonfiction Writing Nonfiction

Author:William T. Vollmann

“I do teach fiction and non-fiction, and usually I'm interested in works that confuse genre, but I'm very new to teaching creative writing, I don't have an MFA, or a PhD, I tend to approach it just through my own practice.”

Writing My Own Fiction Teach Practice Creative Teaching Approach Genre Creative Writing Non Fiction Phds

Author:Kate Zambreno

“I try to tell student writers to read as much as possible, not only literature but philosophy, theory, and to form obsessions. There's a big taboo in fiction creative writing workshops against using the self at all, and I think I try to encourage students to write the self, but to connect the self to something larger, which is to be this thinking, seeing, searching, eternally curious person, and that writing can come out of investigating and trying to understand confusion, and doubts, and obsessions.”

“I don't want to write poems that are just really clear about how I'm aware of all the traps involved in writing poetry; I don't want to write fiction that's about the irresponsibility of writing fiction and I've thrown out a lot of writing that I think was ultimately tainted by that kind of self-awareness.”

Thinking Want Writing Kind Self Fiction Clear Awareness Involved Self Awareness Thrown Traps Writing Fiction Writing Poetry Tainted Irresponsibility

Author:Ben Lerner

“I never wanted my books to be mistaken for poetry or fiction books; I wanted to write reference books. But instead of referring to something, they refer to nothing.”

Writing Book Wanted Fiction Mistaken Referring

Author:Kenneth Goldsmith

“I wasn't aware I'd write the novel when I wrote the New Yorker story either. And the narration of their construction in 10:04 is fiction, however flickering.”

Writing Stories Fiction Novel Construction New Yorkers Narration

Author:Ben Lerner

“Experiments with the "as if" of fiction are often more lively in poetry and criticism and other modes of writing than in weak short stories or novels.”

Ifs Writing Stories Fiction Novel Criticism Weak Experiments Short Story Lively

Author:Ben Lerner

“The fiction I tend to like is nothing like my own work. I like the kind of writing that shows me things I don't know about, and what I don't know about is the everyday, normal world.”

Knows World Writing Kind Shows My Own Fiction Normal Everyday Show Me

Author:Jim Woodring

“I'm not disciplined in terms of scheduling. I work best late at night, but I can't do that when I'm on a TV show - our hours are roughly 10-6:30, so I have to go to sleep at a reasonable hour. So I'll sometimes write fiction for an hour or two in the evenings, or several hours on the weekend afternoons - unless I'm actively writing a script for the show I'm working on, in which case there's no time to write fiction at all.”

Writing I Can Two Sometimes Shows Night Term Hours Sleep Fiction Cases Tvs Late Scripts Evening Reasonable Afternoon Weekend Tv Shows Going To Sleep Scheduling

Author:Nick Antosca

“Even though I always claimed that I didn't want to write about something - once I wasn't writing fiction, anyway; I think for me the change from fiction to poetry was that in fiction I was writing about something, in poetry I was writing something.”

Thinking Want Writing Fiction Writing Fiction

Author:Vito Acconci

“I became much more interested in plot when I really didn't consider myself a writer anymore. When I was in an art context and I started to do installations, that was when writing of mine almost returned to fiction. Earlier I felt like I didn't have anything to write about, I could only concentrate on the page, I could only concentrate on words.”

Writing Art Felt Fiction Mines Pages Plot Installation

Author:Vito Acconci

“The truth is that every writer, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, is trying to write something truly original and that's what I think I'm doing.”

Thinking Writing Trying Fiction Truth Is Originals Nonfiction

Author:Lisa Scottoline

“When writers are self-conscious about themselves as writers they often keep a great distance from their characters, sounding as if they were writing encyclopedia entries instead of stories. Their hesitancy about physical and psychological intimacy can be a barrier to vital fiction. Conversely, a narration that makes readers hear the characters' heavy breathing and smell their emotional anguish diminishes distance. Readers feel so close to the characters that, for those magical moments, they become those characters.”

“Read non-fiction. History, biology, entomology, mineralogy, paleontology. Get a bodyguard and do fieldwork. Find your inner fish. Don't publish too soon. Not before you have read Thomas Mann in any case. Learn by copying, sentence by sentence some of the masters. Copy Coetzee's or Sebald's sentences and see what happens to your story. Consider creative non-fiction if you want to stay in South Africa. It might be the way to go. Never neglect back and hamstring exercises, otherwise you won't be able to write your novel. One needs one's buttocks to think.”

“Writing fiction means putting a lot of what you believe about the world at risk, because you have to follow your characters.”

World Writing Believe Mean Character Fiction Risk Writing Fiction

Author:Phil Klay

“My writing has always been what you call 'narrative fiction' in the sense that it's got very strong plots and twists at the end.”

Writing Ends Strong Fiction Narrative Plot Very Strong Twists

Author:Anthony Horowitz

“Anyone can write a specification, but if nobody implements it, what is it but a particularly dry form of science fiction.”

Ifs Writing Form Fiction Science Fiction Dry Specifications

Author:Ian Hickson

“When you're writing a book that is going to be a narrative with characters and events, you're walking very close to fiction, since you're using some of the methods of fiction writing. You're lying, but some of the details may well come from your general recollection rather than from the particular scene. In the end it comes down to the readers. If they believe you, you're OK. A memoirist is really like any other con man; if he's convincing, he's home. If he isn't, it doesn't really matter whether it happened, he hasn't succeeded in making it feel convincing.”

“When I am writing fiction, I believe I am much better organized, more methodical - one has to be when writing a novel. Writing poetry is a state of free float.”

Writing Believe States I Believe Fiction Novel Organized Poetry Is Floats Novel Writing Writing Fiction Writing Poetry Methodical

Book:Waltzing Again: New and Selected Conversations with Margaret Atwood

Source: Waltzing Again: New and Selected Conversations with Margaret Atwood

“Imagination is the key to my lyrics. The rest is painted with a little science fiction...All I'm writing is just what I feel, that's all. I just keep it almost naked. And probably the words are so bland...I just hate to be in one corner. I hate to be put as only a guitar player, or either only as a songwriter, or only as a tap dancer. I like to move around...Music doesn't lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.”

“At times of crisis or distress, it's poems that people turn to. (Poetry) still has a power to speak to people's feelings, maybe in a way that fiction, because it works in a longer way, can't. There's a little bit of your brain that mourns and grieves that you're not writing poetry, but actually as long as I'm writing something, I'm happy.”

People Way Writing Littles Long Stills Feelings Turns Speak Bits Brain Fiction Little Bit Crisis Grieving Distress Mourn Writing Poetry Times Of Crisis

Author:Blake Morrison

“I, as the writer, can be very clear that I am writing a work of heightened fiction, as opposed to documenting horrible things that happen every day in the world. Which I have no interest in doing.”

World Writing Happens Interest Fiction Clear Horrible Horrible Things

Author:Bryan Fuller

“I have found, in short, from reading my own writing, that my subject in fiction is the action of grace in territory largely held by the devil.”

Writing Action Reading Found My Own Fiction Grace Subjects Devil Territory

Book:Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

Source: Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

“When we look at a good deal of serious modern fiction, and particularly Southern fiction, we find this quality about it that is generally described, in a pejorative sense, as grotesque. Of course, I have found that anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the Northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic.... Whenever I'm asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one.”

Writing Looks Stills Able Courses Found Deals Fiction Quality Cases Modern Serious Reader South Realistic Southern Freak Grotesque

Author:Flannery O'Connor

“You should spend more time with your families; write that novel you've always wanted to write. You know, the one about the fearless reporter who stands up to the administration. You know - fiction.”

Knows Should Writing Wanted Fiction Novel Administration Fearless Our Family More Time Reporters

Author:Stephen Colbert

“Writing fiction is fundamentally an irrational act.”

Writing Fiction Irrational Writing Fiction

Author:Dale Peck

“Nothing trains you better to write fiction than being really good at writing about your own interiority.”

Writing Fiction Train Being Real

Author:Emily Gould

“Great fiction can often present moral messages with greater power and clarity than instructional writing - since literature, after all, penetrates not just the intellect, but the imagination.”

Writing Literature Imagination Fiction Moral Greater Messages Intellect Clarity Penetrate Greater Power

Author:Charles Colson

“The more fiction you read and write, the more you'll find your paragraphs forming on their own.”

Writing Fiction Paragraph

Book:On Writing

Source: On Writing

“...writing fiction...is no job for intellectual cowards.”

Writing Jobs Fiction Intellectual Coward Writing Fiction

Author:Stephen King

“Most of my writer friends are women, and they're all extremely talented, so of course I think the state of contemporary fiction for women is pretty great. Which is to say there is a ton of amazing work out there. These women are writing hard. There's much to be said. We're on it, chief.”

Thinking Writing Said Hard States Courses Fiction Work Out Contemporary Chiefs Contemporary Fiction Amazing Work

Author:Jami Attenberg

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