“I usually do at least a dozen drafts and progressively make more-conscious decisions. Because I've always believed stories are closer to poems than novels, I spend a lot of time on the story's larger rhythms, such as sentence and paragraph length, placement of flashbacks and dialogue.” StoriesDecisionNovelConsciousSentencesDialogueRhythmLengthDozenAlways BelieveParagraphPlacementFlashback Author:Ron Rash
“I wasted a lot of years working on my writing and very grandly saying, 'And now... My Novel!,' which would soon be reduced to a short story, then to a paragraph.” WritingYearsStoriesNovelShort StoryParagraph Author:George Saunders
“For me, the short story is the depth of a novel, the breadth of a poem, and, as you come to the last few paragraphs, the experience of surprise.” StoriesLastsNovelSurpriseDepthShort StoryParagraphBreadth Author:Amy Bloom
“I get up in the morning with an idea for a three-volume novel and by nightfall it's a paragraph in my column.” IdeasNightThreeMorningNovelGet UpVolumeColumnsParagraphNightfall Author:Don Marquis
“For me a paragraph in a novel is a bit like a line in a poem. It has its own shape, its own music, its own integrity.” BitsLinesNovelIntegrityShapesParagraph Author:Paul Auster
“I don't begin a novel until I have written, not just the last sentence, but usually, as a result thereof, many of the surrounding final paragraphs, so that in addition to knowing what happens, I know what the voice is.” KnowsHappensLastsVoiceResultsNovelKnowingWrittenFinalsSentencesParagraph Author:John Irving
“Everyone my age had written a novel and I was still having difficulty writing a paragraph.” WritingStillsAgeNovelWrittenDifficultyParagraph Author:Ernest Hemingway
“Writing a novel- actually picking the words and filling in paragraphs- is a tremendous pain in the ass. Now that TV's so good and the Internet is an endless forest of distraction, it's damn near impossible. That should be taken into account when ranking the all-time greats. Somebody like Charles Dickens, for example, who had nothing better to do except eat mutton and attend public hangings, should get very little credit.” ShouldWritingLittlesPainNovelTakenImpossibleExampleTvsInternetAccountsCreditEndlessForestsAssAll TimeDamnDistractionFillingParagraphDickensRankingFilling InMutton Author:Steve Hely