“Shirley Jackson said that a confused reader is an antagonistic reader, and I live by that. It's okay to start anywhere, and to let yourself write a big sloppy overly-detailed first draft. You just jump in, knowing that the water will be cold at first, but no one is making you swim.” WritingFirstsSaidBigsWaterKnowingColdReaderOkayConfusedLive BySwimSloppy Author:Anne Lamott
“It's important to me that the reader goes on a ride with the characters, that you set context enough to know, "Okay, here's where we are in the world. Now we're just going to go inside this person's head, this guy's heart, this woman's ambitions and take it down to very, very small scale."” KnowsWorldHeartPersonsImportantEnoughCharacterGuyGoes OnReaderAmbitionOkayScalesThis Guy Author:Don Winslow
“There are some things fundamentally off about the stance of the book. And maybe that's okay; maybe every book is flawed, and great books, as flawed as they might be, articulate a moral argument that the reader then carries forward. The critique to this model is, of course, to ask: Should a book be ever so perfect that you come out of it with complete moral agreement that can be sustained?” ShouldBookMightCoursesAsksPerfectMoralReaderModelsArgumentOkayAgreementCarrieFlawedCritiqueStanceGreat Book Author:George Saunders