“I ran across an excerpt today (in English translation) of some dialogue/narration from the modern popular writer, Paulo Coelho in his book: Aleph.(Note: bracketed text is mine.)... 'I spoke to three scholars,' [the character says 'at last.'] ...two of them said that, after death, the [sic (misprint, fault of the publisher)] just go to Paradise. The third one, though, told me to consult some verses from the Koran. [end quote]' ...I can see that he's excited. [narrator]' ...Now I have many positive things to say about Coelho: He is respectable, inspiring as a man, a truth-seeker, and an appealing writer; but one should hesitate to call him a 'literary' writer based on this quote. A 'literary' author knows that a character's excitement should be 'shown' in his or her dialogue and not in the narrator's commentary on it. Advice for Coelho: Remove the 'I can see that he's excited' sentence and show his excitement in the phrasing of his quote.(Now, in defense of Coelho, I am firmly of the opinion, having myself written plenty of prose that is flawed, that a novelist should be forgiven for slipping here and there.)Lastly, it appears that a belief in reincarnation is of great interest to Mr. Coelho ... Just think! He is a man who has achieved, (as Leonard Cohen would call it), 'a remote human possibility.' He has won lots of fame and tons of money. And yet, how his preoccupation with reincarnation—none other than an interest in being born again as somebody else—suggests that he is not happy!” LifeWritingInspirationTruthHappinessInspiringEducationInspirational LifeBirthFameInspirational AttitudeFortuneFaultsIslamEducationalHappyDialogueExcitementParadiseIslamicLife And DeathImperfectionInspiring QuotesPublishingReincarnationGrammarWriting AdviceCritiqueNovelsBorn AgainLiterature QuotesAuthorshipFamous AuthorsIslamic QuotesRomanLiterary CriticismHuman PotentialWriting CraftCraftsmanshipCharacterizationCraftRoman PayneWriting From The HeartNovelistNarrationHappiness Positive OutlookPaulo CoelhoPayneLiterary TheoryFame And FortuneAdvice For WritersKoranHumanenessSentence StructureCoelhoLeonard CohenAlephArt Of LiteraturePhrasingCohenWriting ArtWriting As A ProfessionCritique Of ModernityGrammaticalWriting And Art Author:Roman Payne
“He had entered another imaginative world, one connected to the beginning of his life as a writer, to the Napoleonic world that had been a lifelong metaphor for the power of art, for the empire of his own creation He began to dictate notes for a new novel, "fragments of the book he imagines himself to be writing." As if he were now writing a novel of which his own altered consciousness was the dramatic center, he dictated a vision of himself as Napoleon and his own family as the Imperial Bonapartes....William and Alice he grasped with his regent hand, addressing his 'dear and most esteemed brother and sister.' To them, to whom he had granted countries, he now gave the responsibility of supervising the detailed plans he had created for 'the decoration of certain apartments, here of the Louvre and Tuileries, which you will find addressed in detail to artists and workment who take them in hand.' He was himself the 'imperial eagle.' Taking down the dictation, Theodora [his secretary] felt it to be almost more than she could bear. 'It is a heart-breaking thing to do, though, there is the extraordinary fact that his mind does retain the power to frame perfectly characteristic sentences.” WritingArtDeathLanguageImaginationCreativityNovelistsNovel WritingDeliriumSyntaxHallucinationSentence Structure Book:Henry James: The Imagination of Genius, A Biography Source: Henry James: The Imagination of Genius, A Biography
“I want to fall in love with beautiful women of all races. Rescue somebody every now and then, improve my painting, and improve my sentence structure. If I can make a living doing that stuff, that's great, and I will keep doing it, and they can do whatever they want with my image. I couldn't care less.” IfsWantI CanCareBeautifulFallStuffCan DoRacePaintingStructureFalling In LoveSentencesNow And ThenRescueBeautiful WomenWanting To Fall In LoveSentence StructureI Want To Fall In Love Author:William T. Vollmann
“I'll never be a minimalist. The fact that the prose is more tightly controlled doesn't for a minute mean that it's minimalist. I very much like arcane words and baroque sentence structure.” MeanFactsMinutesStructureSentencesProseControlledMinimalistBaroqueArcaneSentence Structure Author:China Mieville
“Most people write the same sentence over and over again. The same number of words-say, 8-10, or 10-12. The same sentence structure. Try to become stretchy-if you generally write 8 words, throw a 20 word sentence in there, and a few three-word shorties. If you're generally a 20 word writer, make sure you throw in some threes, fivers and sevens, just to keep the reader from going crosseyed.” PeopleIfsWritingTryingThreeNumbersReaderStructureSentencesThree WordsSentence Structure Author:Janet Fitch
“Your passion for words & sentence structure should equal a painter's passion for color & brushstroke.” ShouldPassionColorEqualStructureSentencesPainterSentence Structure Author:Andrew McAleer
“I come from not just a household but a country where the finesse of language, well-balanced sentence, structure, syntax, these things are driven into us, and my parents, bless them, are great custodians of the English language.” WellsCountryLanguageParentStructureSentencesDrivenBlessBalancedHouseholdEnglish LanguageSyntaxCustodiansFinesseSentence Structure Author:Daniel Day-Lewis
“With sixty staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and definite hardening of the paragraphs.” WritingFacesComedyStructureSentencesStaringBirthdaySarcasticSixtyDefiniteParagraphSentence Structure Author:James Thurber
“They were like English teachers who took the fun out of a perfectly good book by breaking it down into themes and sentence structures” BookFunTeacherStructureSentencesThemeGood BookEnglish TeacherPerfectly GoodSentence Structure Author:Tawni O'Dell
“If you find yourself imitating another writer, that doesn't have to be a bad thing, especially if you are a young or a new writer. However, you should be conscious of exactly how you are imitating him - word choice, sentence structure, motifs? - and think about why you're doing it.” IfsThinkingShouldWritingYoungChoicesConsciousStructureSentencesFinding YourselfBad ThingsImitatingMotifsWord ChoiceSentence Structure Author:Poppy Z. Brite
“Sentence structure is innate, but whining is acquired.” WritingStructureSentencesEditingInnateWhiningSentence Structure Author:Woody Allen