“I plot as I go. Many novelists write an outline that has almost as many pages as their ultimate book. Others knock out a brief synopsis... Do what is comfortable. If you have to plot out every move your characters make, so be it. Just make sure there is a plausible purpose behind their machinations. A good reader can smell a phony plot a block away.” IfsWritingBookCharacterMovingPurposeBehindsReaderComfortablePagesUltimateSmellBlockNovelistsPlotOutlinesPhonyPlausibleSynopsis Author:Clive Cussler
“an Autobiography is the truest of all books; for while it inevitably consists mainly of extinctions of the truth, shirkings of the truth, partial revealments of the truth, with hardly an instance of plain straight truth, the remorseless truth is there, between the lines, where the author-cat is raking dust upon it which hides from the disinterested spectator neither it nor its smell... the result being that the reader knows the author in spite of his wily diligences.” KnowsBookLinesResultsReaderTruth IsCatSmellInstanceDustSpiteAutobiographyExtinctionSpectatorsDiligenceTruestDisinterestedBetween The LinesRemorseless Book:The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain Source: The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain
“As readers, we want not only a strong story, but also characters we can relate to, characters that feel real. We have to find something of ourselves in them. Each character, even those only there to serve the mechanics of the plot, should have a number of layers. The entire world you are stepping into as a reader must feel real. It must have resonance, you must be able to touch the light; smell the smells.” WorldWantFeelsShouldRealCharacterStoriesLightAbleStrongNumbersReaderShould HaveSmellRelatePlotLayersMechanicResonance Author:Carlos Ruiz Zafon
“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.” IfsFeelsWritingSelfMomentsCharacterStoriesFictionEmotionalReaderConsciousDistanceHeavySmellPsychologicalIntimacyBreathingBarriersAnguishDiminishSelf ConsciousEntryEncyclopediaNarrationMagical Moments Author:Jerome Stern
“Is rule of thumb in writing game: if story requires many long descriptions of smells so vile that will give reader nausea, is not likely to find publisher.” IfsGivingWritingLongStoriesGamesReaderSmellDescriptionSongwritingPublishersThumbsNausea Author:Dean Koontz