Best novel & scene Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“Cut like crazy. Less is more. I've often read manuscripts - including my own - where I've got to the beginning of, say, chapter two and have thought: “This is where the novel should actually start.” A huge amount of information about character and backstory can be conveyed through small detail. The emotional attachment you feel to a scene or a chapter will fade as you move on to other stories. Be business-like about it.”

Feels Should Two Character Stories Moving My Own Novel Cutting Crazy Information Emotional Huge Amount Scene Including Details Attachment Fades Chapters Manuscripts Less Is More Small Details

Author:Sarah Waters

“I know publishing now more as an author than with occasional peaks inside those elite offices than as an industry insider. It was difficult publishing a novel the first time around, while working behind the scenes, knowing all that has to happen to make a book a success and to still make the leap as an author.”

Knows Firsts Stills Book Happens Difficult Behinds Novel Knowing Industry Scene Office First Time Leap Elites Publishing Occasional Behind The Scenes Insiders Working Behind The Scenes

Author:Jennifer Gilmore

“Music's always part of my writing. I think all art is interconnected. You can't create or experience one without its influences bleeding into another. In my writing, music's mostly something that feeds my inspiration and mood while I'm writing, but it's also taught me how to score scenes and even novels. The rise and fall of the storyline echoes the flow of a good piece of music.”

Thinking Writing Art Inspiration Fall Novel Pieces Influence Taught Scene Art Is Flow Mood Score Echoes Bleeding Interconnected Writing Music Rise And Fall Storyline

Author:Charles de Lint

“A visionary company is like a great work of art. Think of Michelangelo's scenes from Genesis on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel or his statue of David. Think of a great and enduring novel like Huckleberry Finn or Crime and Punishment. Think of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony or Shakespeare's Henry V. Think of a beautifully designed building, like the masterpieces of Frank Lloyd Wright or Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. You can't point to any one single item that makes the whole thing work; it's the entire work-all the pieces working together to create an overall effect-that leads to enduring greatness.”

Source: Thinking for a Change: 11 Ways Highly Successful People Approach Life and Work

“There is no such thing as too ordinary to write about, whether that's life or a scene in a novel. What's interesting to people, whether it's memoir or fiction, is the truth.”

People Writing Interesting Fiction Novel Scene Ordinary Memoir

Author:Augusten Burroughs

“Being accused of making money by selling sex in Hollywood, home of the casting couch and the gratuitous nude scene, is so rich with irony that it's a better subject for a comic novel than a column.... On one coast the cops are busting sex workers on Eighth Avenue, dragging them downtown to night court where they pay the fine and go right back to their corner; on another they're charging Heidi Fleiss with pandering in a town in which the verb is an art form.”

“I was highly aware, in writing [the book] ROOM, that there are unsavoury aspects to our interest in such cases, and I thought it was rather honester to include discussion of media representation in the novel itself than to cling to the high moral ground by merely avoiding scenes of voyeurism, for instance.”

Writing Book Interest Rooms Moral Cases Novel Media Scene Aspect Instance Discussion Representation Avoiding

Author:Emma Donoghue

“A good novel is an indivisible sum; every scene, sequence and passage of a good novel has to involve, contribute to and advance all three of its major attributes: theme, plot, characterization.”

Three Novel Scene Majors Theme Plot Passages Attributes Sequence Indivisible Characterization

Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z

Source: The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z

“Every reader of the Dreiser novels must cherish astounding specimens--of awkward, platitudinous marginalia, of whole scenes spoiled by bad writing, of phrases as brackish as so many lumps of sodium hyposulphite.”

Writing Whole Literature Novel Reader Scene Phrases Cherish Awkward Spoiled Lumps American Literature Bad Writing Sodium

Book:A book of prefaces

Source: A book of prefaces

“Jekyll and Hyde, in particular, is such an important novel in terms of suspense and setting a perfect scene for crime”

Important Term Perfect Novel Crime Particular Scene Setting Settings Suspense Hyde Jekyll Jekyll And Hyde

Author:Alanna Knight

“I am of the generation of writers who can get instant feedback from readers within hours of publication. The fan forum is extraordinary - readers from all over the world coming together to discuss, argue and debate scenes and characters from a novel. They add a layer to the story that I cannot write and yes, I will participate in that conversation and answer questions. After all, they are the people I'm writing for and their enthusiasm and questions really pushes me to raise the bar.”

“I've never written an autobiographical novel in my life. I've never touched upon my life. I've never written a single scene that I can say took place.”

I Can Novel Written Scene Touched

Author:Bret Easton Ellis

“The book is almost always better than the movie. You could have no better case in point than FROM HELL, Alan Moore's best graphic novel to date, brilliantly illustrated by Eddie Campbell. It's hard to describe just how much better the book is. It's like, "If the movie was an episode of Battlestar Galactica with a guest appearance by the Smurfs and everyone spoke Dutch, the graphic novel is Citizen Kane with added sex scenes and music by your favourite ten bands and everyone in the world you ever hated dies at the end." That's how much better it is.”

“The Florida in my novels is not as seedy as the real Florida. It's hard to stay ahead of the curve. Every time I write a scene that I think is the sickest thing I have ever dreamed up, it is surpassed by something that happens in real life.”

Thinking Writing Real Hard Happens Novel Scene Real Life Florida Curves

Author:Carl Hiaasen

“I had a novel in the back of my mind when I won an Ian St James story competition in 1993. At the award ceremony an agent asked me if I was writing a novel. I showed her four or five chapters of what would become 'Behind the Scenes at the Museum' and to my surprise she auctioned them off.”

Ifs Writing Mind Stories Behinds Novel Five Four Scene Competition Surprise Agents Awards Museums Chapters Ceremony Of My Mind Behind The Scenes Award Ceremonies

Author:Kate Atkinson

“I write my novels longhand. I love the feeling of writing; I love to see pen on paper. It feels more creative than typing, and it's a more visual process for me - I can picture the entire scene in my head and am merely writing what I see.”

Feels Writing I Can Feelings Process Novel Creative Scene Paper Visuals Pens Typing

Author:Cecelia Ahern

“Toronto may be the only city where novels are integral to high art, the alternative scene and mainstream culture all at the same time.”

May Art Culture Cities Novel Scene Alternatives Mainstream Toronto High Art Mainstream Culture

Author:Stephen Marche

“I think the success of every novel - if it's a novel of action - depends on the high spots. The thing to do is to say to yourself, 'Which are my big scenes?' and then get every drop of juice out of them. The principle I always go on in writing a novel is to think of the characters in terms of actors in a play. I say to myself, if a big name were playing this part, and if he found that after a strong first act he had practically nothing to do in the second act, he would walk out. Now, then, can I twist the story so as to give him plenty to do all the way through?”

Ifs Thinking Way Giving Writing Firsts Play Character Stories Bigs Action Actors Found Names Strong Term Walks Principles Novel Goes On Depends Scene Spots Plenty Things To Do Twists Juice

Author:P. G. Wodehouse

“I kind of build a novel the way marine polyps build a coral reef, it's millions and millions of little precarious bodies stacked on one another. And in my case, that's thousands of minutes I go through to get from one scene to the next and build it that way.”

Way Kind Littles Body Next Millions Cases Novel Minutes Scene Marine Precarious Reefs Coral Reefs

Author:Dean Koontz

“have a much harder time writing stories than novels. I need the expansiveness of a novel and the propulsive energy it provides. When I think about scene - and when I teach scene writing - I'm thinking about questions. What questions are raised by a scene? What questions are answered? What questions persist from scene to scene to scene?”

Thinking Needs Writing Stories Energy Teach Novel Scene Harder Raised Persist Writing Stories Expansiveness

Author:Edan Lepucki

“I'll never forget reading Chekhov's "A Doctor's Visit" on a train to Hawthorne, New York, and I got to the end - the scene where the patient says goodbye to the doctor and she puts a flower in her hair as a kind of thank you to him - and I felt like a cowboy shot from a canyon's top. This is a different experience from reading a novel, I think. The emotional effect is cumulative. Let's just hope market forces don't send short fiction the way of the dinosaur, because their sales are paltry compared to the novel and this is truly unfortunate.”

“Captain Ahab was a man possessed with an obsessional drive to pursue the white whale which had harmed him - which had torn his leg out - to the ends of the Earth, no matter what happened. In the final scene of the novel, Captain Ahab is being borne out to sea, wrapped around the white whale with the rope of his own harpoon and going obviously to his death. It was a scene of almost suicidal finality.”

Men Ends Matter Earth White Novel Happened Sea Scene No Matter What Finals Legs Pursue Possessed Captains Torn Suicidal Rope Whales Finality Ahab

Author:Edward Said

“You have the older generation like Iris Murdoch and Angus Wilson who are not as old as Graham Greene, but still are coming on. I dare say anyone who knew the scene better than I know it could fill it in with a very satisfactory supply of novels.”

Knows Stills Novel Generations Scene Dare Wilson Irises Older Generation

Author:William Golding

Novel Quotes

Related topics

Novel Quotes