“I feel like reading really defined me as a writer because I lived my life outside of my own body for so much of my life and I loved it. I've always been a reader. I think living all those stories served me to naturally take that next step to creating.” ThinkingFeelsStoriesBodyReadingNextMy OwnStepsReaderCreatingDefinedNext Steps Author:Stephenie Meyer
“Nowadays when a poet with one privately printed book can have his next three years taken care of by a Guggenheim fellowship, a Kenyon Review fellowship, and the Prix de Rome, it is hard to remember what chances the poet took in that small-town world, how precariously hand-to-mouth his existence was. And yet in one way the old days were better; [Vachel] Lindsay after a while, by luck and skill, got far more readers than any poet could get today.” WorldWayYearsBookHardHandsCareTodayRememberThreeNextChanceExistenceTakenPoetReaderSkillsMouthsTownsLuckOne WayReviewsRomeThree YearsSmall TownFellowshipPrintedOld DaysLuck And SkillPrinted Books Author:Randall Jarrell
“There is no ideal length, but you develop a little interior gauge that tells you whether or not you're supporting the house or detracting from it. When a piece gets too long, the tension goes out of it. That wordtensionhas an animal insistence for me. A piece of writing rises and falls with tension. The writer holds one end of the rope and the reader holds the other endis the rope slack, or is it tight? Does it matter to the reader what the next sentence is going to be?” WritingLittlesLongDoeEndsMatterFallNextHouseAnimalPiecesReaderIdealsSentencesTensionLengthInteriorsRopeInsistenceGaugesRise And FallDoes It Matter Author:John Jeremiah Sullivan
“There are other great writers who are not read properly in their own day for the reason, perhaps, that their readers are not yet born. What they have to say to their own generation is said so at cross-purposes and with such apparent irrelevance that it is not understood. They are, as it were, giants who tower above their own age to cast their shadows across the next.” SaidReasonAgePurposeNextBornGenerationsReaderUnderstoodShadowCrossesCastsGiantsTowersGreat WritersIrrelevance Author:Caroline Gordon
“I think [James] Joyce sometimes enjoyed misleading his readers. He said to me that history was like that parlor game where someone whispers something to the person next to him, who repeats it not very distinctly to the next person, and so on until, by the time the last person hears it, it comes out completely transformed. Of course, as he explained to me, the meaning in Finnegans Wake is obscure because it is a 'nightpiece.' I think, too, that, like the author's sight, the work is often blurred.” ThinkingPersonsSaidSometimesLastsCoursesNextGamesReaderSightEnjoyedRepeatsTransformedObscureMisleadJoyceParlorFinnegans WakeParlor Games Author:Sylvia Beach
“I think the trick of being a writer is to basically put your cards out there all the time and be willing to be as in the dark about what happens next as your reader would be at that time.” ThinkingHappensWould BeNextDarkWillingReaderTricksCards Author:George Saunders
“Therefore, no matter how the world makes out in the next few centuries, a large class of readers at least will not be too surprised at anything. They will have been through it all before in fictional form, and will not be too paralyzed with astonishment to try to cope with contingencies as they arise.” WorldTryingHas BeensMatterFormNextClassCenturyReaderAriseAstonishmentParalyzedMake OutContingency Author:L. Sprague de Camp
“My readers often say to me, 'If we lived next door to each other, we'd be best friends.' That is precisely what I wanted to say to smart, funny, self-effacing Ellen McCarthy after I finished reading The Real Thing. I loved every lesson laid out in a book that wouldn't dare to call itself a field guide to marriage but amounts to as much on every page. This is a deeply useful little book.” IfsLittlesBookRealSelfWantedReadingNextDoorsFieldsReaderAmountLessonsPagesSmartDareFinishedGuidesReal Things Author:Kelly Corrigan
“Each kind of story has its own problems in writing, but my main concern really is to keep the reader on his toes, or to keep the strip unpredictable. I try to achieve some sort of balance between the two that keeps the reader wondering what's going to happen next and be surprised.” WritingTryingKindTwoStoriesProblemHappensNextWonderAchieveReaderBalanceConcernToesUnpredictable Author:Bill Watterson
“I'm always reading. Here's where an ebook reader really comes into its own. When I travel, it allows me to carry a huge chunk of my library with me. Usually, when I am writing one project, I am researching the next or beginning to pull together the material for the book after that.” WritingBookTogetherReadingNextMaterialsHugeReaderProjectsLibraryChunks Author:Michael Scott
“A book is something that young readers can experience on their own time. They decide when to turn the page. They'll put their arm right on the page so you can't turn it because they're not ready to go to the next page yet. They just want to look at it again, or they want to read the book over and over because they really enjoy setting the pace themselves.” WantLooksBookYoungTurnsNextEnjoyReadyArmsReaderPagesSettingSettingsPaceNot Ready Author:Jan Brett
“I met Shannon Hale through some friends and family. I was interested in her book called Princess Academy, which is just a very sweet, Newbery-nominated fairy tale for young readers. She was like, "Oh, actually I have something else for you." She gave me Austenland. The next morning, I'm sure I called her and I was like, "Let's make this movie." It is so fun. It just felt so girly and great and a great vehicle for the weird Hess comedy.” BookYoungNextFunFeltMorningComedySweetReaderMetsTalesFairyPrincessVehicleFairy TaleFamily And FriendsAcademyGirlyHaleVery SweetShannon Author:Jerusha Hess
“All your clear and pleasing sentences will fall apart if you don't keep remembering that writing is linear and sequential, that logic is the glue that holds it together, that tension must be maintained from one sentence to the next and from one paragraph to the next and from one section to the next, and that narrative - good old-fashioned storytelling - is what should pull your readers along without their noticing the tug.” IfsShouldWritingTogetherRememberFallNextClearReaderLogicSentencesStorytellingNarrativeTensionSectionsOld FashionedFalling ApartNoticingParagraphLinearGlueOne Sentence Author:William Zinsser
“Good writing has an aliveness that keeps the reader reading from one paragraph to the next, and it's not a question of gimmicks to "personalize" the author.” WritingReadingNextReaderParagraphGood WritingGimmicks Book:On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction Source: On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction
“A word, and all the infinite fluctuations it may possess. Like that moment when you know you have something to say, and you know you're speaking, even, but you still have no idea how you will say it. Or the moment when, as a reader, you're reading, and you are understanding what you are reading, but still have utterly no idea what will come next for you, what precisely the author wants to say. For me, that is the ultimate level of literary depth, of literary density.” KnowsWantMayStillsIdeasMomentsReadingNextUnderstandingLevelsReaderUltimateInfiniteDepthNo IdeaThat MomentDensityFluctuation Author:Sergio Chejfec
“I wouldn't have thought that the techniques of story-telling, which is what the novel is after all, can vary much because there are two things involved.There's a story and there's a listener, whose attention you have to keep. Now the only way in which you can keep a reader's attention to a story is in his wanting to know what is going to happen next. This puts a fairly close restriction on the method you must use.” KnowsWayTwoStoriesUseHappensNextAttentionNovelReaderInvolvedMethodTechniqueTwo ThingsListenersRestrictionVary Author:William Golding
“I wasn't a big comic book reader. I always had trouble knowing which box to read next. I was always reading from the wrong box. I was like, this is a comic book that doesn't make any sense! I think I was reading them all out of sequence.” ThinkingBookBigsReadingNextKnowingTroubleReaderBoxesComicComic BookSequenceBook Readers Author:Tim Burton
“I believe that, when [meeting of writer and reader] happens and the reader goes out into the world the next day, there's some alteration that might possibly inflect the person positively.” WorldBelievePersonsMightHappensNextI BelieveReaderMeetingsNext DayPositivelyAlterations Author:George Saunders
“When we read a story, we inhabit it. The covers of the book are like a roof and four walls. What is to happen next will take place within the four walls of the story. And this is possible because the story's voice makes everything its own.” BookStoriesHappensReadingNextVoiceFourWallReaderStorytellingReading BooksRoofBook ReadingBook ReadersFour WallsReading Stories Book:Keeping a Rendezvous Source: Keeping a Rendezvous