“It's important, I think, for a writer of fiction to maintain an awareness of the pace and shape of the book as he's writing it. That is, he should be making an object, not chattering.” ThinkingShouldWritingImportantBookFictionAwarenessObjectsShapesPace Author:Thomas Perry
“I have long admired the visceral storytelling and moral complexity of John Vaillant’s brilliant non-fiction about humankind’s tragically ambivalent relationship with the natural world. Now he brings his abundant literary gifts to a debut novel set in a very real borderland in which human beings are themselves treated like animals. The Jaguar’s Children is a beautifully rendered lament for an imperiled culture and the brave lives that would preserve it. You should read it.” WorldShouldHumansChildrenLongRealCultureNaturalHuman BeingsAnimalFictionMoralNovelBraveBrilliantTreatedStorytellingPreservesComplexityHumankindNatural WorldNon FictionLamentVisceralDebutAmbivalentJaguars Author:John Burnham Schwartz
“Fiction should be about moral dilemmas that are so bloody difficult that the author doesn't know the answer. What I hate in fiction is when the author knows better than the characters what they should do.” KnowsShouldCharacterHateDifficultAnswersFictionMoralI HateBloodyDilemmaMoral Dilemma Author:Pat Barker
“A good writer should be able to write comedic work that made you laugh, and scary stuff that made you scared, and fantasy or science fiction that imbued you with a sense of wonder, and mainstream journalism that gave you clear and concise information in a way that you wanted it.” WayShouldWritingMadeAbleWantedStuffFictionWonderFantasyLaughingClearInformationScience FictionScaredScaryJournalismMainstreamGood WritersComedicSense Of WonderConciseScary Stuff Author:Neil Gaiman
“Prose is like a window; fiction is like a door. But it is not uncommon that he who should come in through the door jumps in through the window.” ShouldFictionDoorsWindowProseUncommon Author:Mu Xin
“What are the hallmarks of a competent writer of fiction? The first, it seems to me, is that he should be immensely interested in human beings, and have an eye sharp enough to see into them, and a hand clever enough to draw them as they are. The second is that he should be able to set them in imaginary situations which display the contents of their psyches effectively, and so carry his reader swiftly and pleasantly from point to point of what is called a good story.” ShouldFirstsHumansEnoughStoriesHandsSeemsEyeAbleHuman BeingsFictionSituationReaderDrawsCleverDisplayImaginaryCompetentGood StoryHallmarkPsych Author:H. L. Mencken