Best Writing Fiction Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 2

“If you're writing fiction, you're dealing with characters who, themselves, will have heartfelt sentiments but who, themselves, live in this culture right now and thus face all the impediments to sort of dealing with those parts of their lives that, you know, that we did. So it would be not only silly but unrealistic to have a character saying that kind of stuff.”

Ifs Inspirational Giving Writing Young Talking Advice Writing A Book Writers And Writing Fiction Writers Writing Fiction Talkers Writing By Writers Young Writers

Author:Lillian Hellman

“When you're writing fiction, you don't have notes necessarily. You don't carve it, it's not like a piece of sculpture, it's more like water color.”

Writing Water Fiction Pieces Color Notes Sculpture Writing Fiction

Author:Joan Didion

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

“When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.”

People Should Writing Character Powerful Novel Caricatures Writing Fiction Great Writing Inspiring Writing Writing Workshop

Book:Death in the Afternoon

Source: Death in the Afternoon

“In a sense, journalism can be both helpful and detrimental to a writer of fiction because the kind of writing you need to do as a journalist is so different. It has to be clear, unambiguous, concise, and as a writer often you are trying to do things that are more ambiguous. I find that writing fiction is often an antidote to reading and writing too much journalism.”

Needs Writing Trying Kind Different Reading Fiction Clear Too Much Journalism Journalist Helpful Antidote Ambiguous Writing Fiction Reading And Writing Detrimental Concise

Author:Aravind Adiga

“Writing fiction is an act of imagination and fantasizing, and it's not relating in prose what you've been doing for the last two or three years.”

Writing Years Two Lasts Three Imagination Fiction Prose Three Years Writing Fiction

Author:Bret Easton Ellis

“I love writing fiction - you can take just what you want from a place, and leave the rest.”

Want Writing Fiction What You Want Writing Fiction

Author:Kate Grenville

“It takes a certain kind of mind to narrate, to work through character motivation, to be unforgiving to one's writer-self when it comes down to creating the minutiae of detail. Writing fiction requires stamina, a sense of how people's lives work, how people work toward and against one another and, above all, precision.”

People Writing Mind Kind Self Character Motivation Certain Fiction Creating Details Precision Stamina Writing Fiction Unforgiving Minutiae

Author:Cate Marvin

“Writing a novel is like heading out over the open sea in a small boat. It helps, if you have a plan and a course laid out.”

Ifs Writing Helping Courses Novel Plans Sea Boat Headings Fiction Writing Writers And Writing Writing Fiction Writing By Writers

Author:John Gardner

“I was writing fiction steadily, but I found that the stark determinisms of code were a welcome relief from the ambiguities of literary narrative.”

Writing Found Fiction Welcome Narrative Code Relief Ambiguity Starks Determinism Writing Fiction

Book:Geek Sublime: Writing Fiction, Coding Software

Source: Geek Sublime: Writing Fiction, Coding Software

“I have always known that writing fiction had little effect on the world; that if it did, young men would not have gone to war after The Iliad.”

Ifs Men World Writing Littles War Young Fiction Known Gone Effects Young Man Writing Fiction Iliad

Book:Broken Vessels: Essays

Source: Broken Vessels: Essays

“Speech recognition is utterly crap for writing fiction. If you try reading a novel aloud you'll soon figure out why - written prose style is utterly unlike the spoken word.”

Ifs Writing Trying Reading Fiction Novel Written Style Figures Speech Recognition Prose Crap Writing Fiction Spoken Word

Author:Charles Stross

“Well, it's my voice, so it's more accessible that way, and there are also all sorts of things like plot and timelines that are already known entities, so for me, it's very different from writing fiction.”

Way Writing Wells Different Voice Fiction Known Plot Entity Writing Fiction Timelines

Author:Alice Sebold

“Characters more or less present themselves to me. I don't know their origins. I think if I did, if I seemed to myself to fabricate them, I could not induce suspension of disbelief in myself in the way writing fiction requires.”

Ifs Thinking Knows Way Writing Character Fiction Disbelief Writing Fiction Suspension Fabricate Suspension Of Disbelief

Author:Marilynne Robinson

“After writing fiction for so long, I like the discovery element of nonfiction, in the sense that when you find the right information, it feels like gold.”

Feels Writing Long Fiction Information Elements Discovery Gold Nonfiction Writing Fiction

Author:Edwidge Danticat

“I don't want to write poems that are just really clear about how I'm aware of all the traps involved in writing poetry; I don't want to write fiction that's about the irresponsibility of writing fiction and I've thrown out a lot of writing that I think was ultimately tainted by that kind of self-awareness.”

Thinking Want Writing Kind Self Fiction Clear Awareness Involved Self Awareness Thrown Traps Writing Fiction Writing Poetry Tainted Irresponsibility

Author:Ben Lerner

“Even though I always claimed that I didn't want to write about something - once I wasn't writing fiction, anyway; I think for me the change from fiction to poetry was that in fiction I was writing about something, in poetry I was writing something.”

Thinking Want Writing Fiction Writing Fiction

Author:Vito Acconci

“Writing fiction means putting a lot of what you believe about the world at risk, because you have to follow your characters.”

World Writing Believe Mean Character Fiction Risk Writing Fiction

Author:Phil Klay

“When I am writing fiction, I believe I am much better organized, more methodical - one has to be when writing a novel. Writing poetry is a state of free float.”

Writing Believe States I Believe Fiction Novel Organized Poetry Is Floats Novel Writing Writing Fiction Writing Poetry Methodical

Book:Waltzing Again: New and Selected Conversations with Margaret Atwood

Source: Waltzing Again: New and Selected Conversations with Margaret Atwood

“Writing fiction is fundamentally an irrational act.”

Writing Fiction Irrational Writing Fiction

Author:Dale Peck

“...writing fiction...is no job for intellectual cowards.”

Writing Jobs Fiction Intellectual Coward Writing Fiction

Author:Stephen King

“The good thing about writing fiction is that you can get back at people.”

People Writing Fiction Good Things Get Back Writing Fiction

Author:John Grisham

“When I am writing political op-eds, I do think carefully about the impact of my words. When I am writing fiction, it's a different story. In my fiction I am more reckless. I don't care about the real world until I am done with the book.”

Thinking World Writing Book Different Real Done Stories Care Political Fiction Impact Don't Care I Don't Care Real World Reckless Writing Fiction

Author:Elif Safak

“A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit.”

Source: A Gift of Wings

“...Don't let me ever hear you say, 'I can't read fiction. I only have time for the truth.' Fiction is the truth, fool! Ever hear of 'literature'? That means fiction, too, stupid.”

Mean I Can Literature Fiction Stupid Fool Let Me Writing Fiction Reading Fiction

Author:John Waters

“Even when I think of writing fiction, it's being kind of a liar, a storyteller, a weaver, and there's that sense of how much of this is your life. The story is a way you unravel your life from behind a mask.”

Thinking Way Writing Kind Stories Behinds Fiction Mask Liars Be Kind Storyteller Writing Fiction Weavers

Author:Edwidge Danticat

“When I started writing fiction it always seemed in retrospect (I didn't realise at the time) that it was always caused by environments rather than by incidents and characters.”

Writing Character Fiction Environment Realising Incidents Retrospect Writing Fiction

Author:Jonathan Meades

“Our minds simply don't function in some sort of narrative chronology. I think that one of the great gifts of writing fiction is being able to think about that.”

Thinking Writing Mind Able Fiction Function Narrative Writing Fiction Great Gifts Chronology

Author:Dani Shapiro

“The triumph of writing fiction is that by doing so, writers can build a more ideal world in themselves.”

World Writing Fiction Ideals Triumph Writing Fiction Ideal World

Author:Lauren Groff

“You can't be wrong in journalism. Take a wrong turn in journalism, and you are writing fiction. You can take a wrong turn in poetry, and something wonderful can happen.”

Writing Happens Turns Fiction Wonderful Journalism Writing Fiction Wrong Turn

Author:Eliza Griswold

“I find it only natural for a storyteller to be interested in storytelling and, for anyone who spends the better part of his or her life writing fiction, it is hardly surprising that the pleasures, worries, and mechanics of fiction-making should enter the work.”

Should Writing Natural Pleasure Fiction Worry Storytelling Surprising Storyteller Mechanic Writing Fiction

Author:Norman Lock

“So for a long time, I did a lot of freelance writing in addition to writing fiction and such - I was a food critic for a magazine for a bit, I did writing for nonprofits and political things, I was the editorial consultant for another magazine for a couple years, all sorts of jobs.”

Writing Years Long Jobs Political Bits Fiction Couple Long Time Critics Magazines Editorials Writing Fiction Consultants Nonprofits

Author:Tod Goldberg

“I always say writing fiction isn't something you teach. It's something you do, and only experimentation - i.e. doing it, either badly or good sometimes - can help anybody get any better or worse at it.”

Writing Sometimes Helping Fiction Teach Experimentation Writing Fiction

Author:Peter Orner

“It's much harder when you're writing about your life, than when you're writing fiction.”

Writing Fiction Harder Writing Fiction

Author:Leigh Newman

“I sometimes get asked if I think about film stuff while I'm writing fiction, and the answer is, of course not.”

Ifs Thinking Writing Sometimes Film Courses Stuff Answers Fiction Writing Fiction

Author:Matthew Specktor

“The tales are quite hard to remember and I found that going back to it between bouts of writing fiction, I was having to retrace my steps quite a lot, because the stories are very intricate and the material is elusive, and possibly with age, my memory is not as malleable as it used to be.”

Writing Hard Stories Age Remember Used Found Memories Fiction Steps Materials Tales Used To Be Elusive Intricate Writing Fiction

Author:Marina Warner

“It's my experience that people don't think of fiction writing as being as intellectually serious as other kinds of writing in academia and so without a career as a critic or essayist you can be treated as something of a spiritual medium - a fraud - for "just" writing fiction.”

People Thinking Writing Kind Spiritual Fiction Careers Serious Critics Treated Mediums Fraud Academia Fiction Writing Writing Fiction Essayists

Author:Alexander Chee

“The best writing advice I ever got was "Keep moving forward, don't retreat into rewrites." The worst came from a book that said "Writing fiction is like telling lies," which just seems stupid to me.”

Writing Said Book Seems Moving Lying Fiction Worst Advice Stupid Moving Forward Retreat Keep Moving Keep Moving Forward Writing Advice Writing Fiction Telling Lies

Author:David B. Coe

“I think I view myself primarily as a fiction writer. Poetry is more of a "hobby," a time of rest from the hard work of writing fiction.”

Thinking Writing Hard Views Fiction Hard Work Poetry Is Hobbies Fiction Writers Writing Fiction

Author:Yuriy Tarnawsky

“When you're writing fiction it's a heightened voice. You're trying to cast a spell, which isn't the same thing as trying to cast someone into it. You are creating a reality but it's a different sort of performance.”

Writing Trying Different Reality Voice Fiction Creating Performances Casts Spells Writing Fiction

Author:Darryl Pinckney

“You write fiction, you're writing memoir, and when you're writing memoir, you're writing fiction.”

Writing Fiction Memoir Writing Fiction

Author:Elizabeth Gilbert

“[Jack] Kerouac was writing fiction. What he did when he wrote about me...he made me out with Russian Countesses and Swiss accounts and other things I didn't have or didn't happen and so on.”

Writing Made Happens Fiction Accounts Writing Fiction Swiss

Author:William S. Burroughs

“My work is very eclectic. I write books that range from writing fiction, writing fable where I am very directly trying to imagine alternate worlds, to writing about [Buckminster] Fuller who was the ultimate world man creating all sorts of alternate worlds and believing that they were imminent to my own work of - for instance, a project that I've been working on for some year and a half, two years now that continues to evolve has been what I call Deep Time Photography.”

“I don't think writing fiction has changed my worldview.”

Thinking Writing Fiction Changed Worldview Writing Fiction

Author:Donald Ray Pollock

“Even when it comes to writing fiction, how do you encompass all this stuff that's right on the tip of your tongue? You have to fold that into what you're working on.”

Writing Stuff Fiction Tongue Folds Writing Fiction

Author:Paul Beatty

“I always say that writing non-fiction versus writing fiction is a bit like architecture versus abstract painting.”

Writing Bits Fiction Painting Architecture Abstract Versus Non Fiction Writing Fiction Abstract Painting

Author:Andrew Lam

“My general approach to writing fiction is that you try to have as few conceptual notions as possible and you just respond to the energy that the story is making rather than having a big over plan. I think if you have a big over plan, the danger is that you might just take your plan and then you bore everybody. I always joke that it's like going on a date with index cards. You know, at 7:30 p.m. I should ask about her mother. You keep all the control to yourself but you are kind of insulting to the other person.”

Ifs Thinking Knows Should Writing Trying Kind Persons Stories Bigs Might Mother Asks Energy Fiction Plans Danger Approach Jokes Notion Cards Bores Insulting Writing Fiction

Author:George Saunders

“As a young kid I assumed that everybody was sort of on the same wavelength as I was and then I found out in a lot of small ways that that wasn't the case. It's sort of a mixed blessing. My mind is like a puppy. It goes all over. I guess writing fiction was a way of harnessing that. I could hook a puppy up to a treadmill and get something out of it.”

Way Writing Mind Kids Young Found Fiction Cases Blessing Hook Puppy Writing Fiction Treadmills Wavelength

Author:George Saunders

“I guess it must be a time-of-life thing, looking back and trying to make some sense of who I am and where I've been. It's a weird thing, having to give an account of yourself, to try to make sense of yourself for yourself. I'm not that old, but I have been writing fiction professionally for a long time now. I started so young and went so hard for so long. And I guess it was about feeling I had the space to look over my shoulder.”

Giving Writing Trying Looks Long Has Beens Hard Feelings Young Space Fiction Long Time Accounts Shoulders Who I Am Make Sense Looking Back Weird Things Writing Fiction

Author:Tim Winton

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Writing Fiction Quotes