Writing Advice Quotes

Lord I thank you for the gift of breath, eyes to see, ears to hear, tongue to taste, nose to smell; mouth to speak, face to smile, voice to sing, body to dance, legs to walk, mind to think and hands to write.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Pound it out, get it done, write every day. No excuses. Kerouac said you can’t wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club. Damn straight. You’ll sleep a lot better getting your word count in than another quick Twitter check or keeping up to date on the Kardashians.

~ Dan Alatorre

You have to put yourself out there as a writer, you can’t play it safe.

~ Dan Alatorre

In order to protect their good names for posterity, many writers never wrote what they thought or the truth as it stood. That's why truth still lies hidden in matters of power, sex and religion. No wonder they chose to do so, many who dared paid with their heads

~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

I know, not everyone will like what I write, but writing is not about trying to please everybody.

~ E.a. Bucchianeri

Keep being bold on the page, and in life, and people cannot ignore you forever.

~ Don Roff

You will have the grace of writing, when you boldly begin to write your first sentences.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

You ought to write down the glow of thoughts as it’s ignites.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

There is nothing better than expressions in words.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Thankfully existing only in SMALL pockets within our discipline, is “intellectual” snobbery. It’s a hushed but ugly truth that people are made to feel not worthy to be among a certain set – didn’t attend the right school or don’t have the requisite abbreviations to follow their name. I know what that feels like. Good thing I'm pigheaded, have a bigger vision and committed to my craft, or I would’ve succumbed to it long ago. That is why when I meet an emerging writer who’s serious about developing their craft, I try to encourage them as much as I can. I say IGNORE the highbrow cliques and prove your mettle by growing, accepting balanced feedback and most of all, creating work that will stand the test of time. Period.

~ Sandra Sealy

It's all mine, it's all sacred.

~ Coco J. Ginger

Every beginner possesses a great potential to be an expert in his or her chosen field.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

[Speaking about writing her first novel] You have to be passionate enough about it and I was.

~ Kristyn Van Cleave

I write to shed my sacred sorrows.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

You are learning to be an expert.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Giving a reader a sex scene that is only half right is like giving her half a kitten. It is not half as cute as a whole kitten; it is a bloody, godawful mess. A half-good sex scene is not half as hot; it actually moves into the negative numbers, draining any heat from the surrounding material.

~ Sandra Newman

The pen is mightier than the sword as long as it doesn't run out of ink.

~ Matshona Dhliwayo

The power of writing supernaturally set things into motion.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Our stories hold unique inspiration for one another.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Great characters- They are pivotal for a great plot. THEN a solid plot: Why then? If you do not have great characters it is impossible to create a good plot, nonetheless a solid one. Once you have built great characters for the scenes, there you have it. It’s just like the movies, you cannot have a great film if the characters are frail and their lines are weak as well. I guess great world-building comes along with a good plot. If there is something that will work fine in a novel is how you will develop from the theme. You’ve got to establish a good timeline, and from there it comes a world. You see the technical matters don’t match or matter as much to me. Even a poorly written story, if there is a good plot and great characters on it will make a divine combination There are simply many cases of it over the mainstream and that even reached the big screen.

~ Ana Claudia Antunes

If you are writing fiction, think like a god. Release all the power of your imagination; create worlds and destroy them at your will, create as many miracles as your story needs

~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

Backstory is like a flavour you can’t quite pick, lurking in the layers of a curry. You know it’s there and it enhances the flavour, but it’s intangible and fleeting. Use it sparingly!

~ Sandy Vaile

There are a lot of ways for a novelist to create suspense, but also really only two: one a trick, one an art.The trick is to keep a secret. Or many secrets, even. In Lee Child’s books, Jack Reacher always has a big mystery to crack, but there are a series of smaller mysteries in the meantime, too, a new one appearing as soon as the last is resolved. J. K. Rowling is another master of this technique — Who gave Harry that Firebolt? How is Rita Skeeter getting her info?The art, meanwhile, the thing that makes “Pride and Prejudice” so superbly suspenseful, more suspenseful than the slickest spy novel, is to write stories in which characters must make decisions. “Breaking Bad” kept a few secrets from its audience, but for the most part it was fantastically adept at forcing Walter and Jesse into choice, into action. The same is true of “Freedom,” or “My Brilliant Friend,” or “Anna Karenina,” all novels that are hard to stop reading even when it seems as if it should be easy.

~ Charles Finch

Not that length and weight alone indicate excellence, many epic tales are pretty much epic crap.

~ Stephen King

Audiences will admire your character’s strength but connect with them through their weakness.

~ Don Roff

A writer is a thought smith, he educates men to think for themselves

~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

The world would have been a better place if some men had just shut their mouths.

~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

I am what I have ever read

~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

We write, not because we claim to know more than others, but perhaps because we want to know more than others. Writers are explorers

~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

Words disappear in the air, but writing remains. If you want something to be remembered about you, write it down

~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

A writer is never alone, he is always with himself

~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

You say you have nothing to write about? How do you find things to talk about? You can write about those things you like to talk about, that's your area of expertise

~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

. If you want to write, just write anything that comes into your mind. You will be surprised at how you can force inspiration to stand on your side.

~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

You can edit what you write. Why not edit what you say? If it hurts somebody, you can still offer an apology or withdraw your statements

~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

Able writers let us into their minds and show us how they think and by that open our minds to ourselves

~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

Sometimes I have a good idea, something I wish I could remember, and instead of writing it down, commit it to my memory only to disappear when I needed it. Write your ideas as they come, if you wait it will be too long and you may not recover it. It may get destroyed as it is to seed to and fro in the ever rushing river of our thoughts

~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

If you are afraid of the critics you will never write a word

~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

You never know what you will write until you write it

~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

Write it as you see in your own perspective, you may be right or wrong but then what, that's how you see it

~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

How do you feel when you read stuff written by dead authors? A visit by a ghost?

~ Bangambiki Habyarimana