The hard part is putting one word after another.

~ Jo Linsdell

Jo Linsdell Writing Writing Books Writing Craft

Pursue knowledge as though it is your life-blood, then you will know greatness!

~ Monique Rockliffe

Monique Rockliffe Knowledge Knowledge Wisdom Writing Craft

I don't imagine book elitists as my audience when writing. I dream about teachers, morticians and garbage men instead.

~ Justin Alcala

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Be still my hand and let the words write themselves upon my heart. Be still my heart and let your pages be filled in silence.

~ Cristen Rodgers

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You must write as if Dostoyevsky himself will be reading your novel, and Shakespeare will be acting it out.

~ Christina Westover

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Be a good reader first, if you wish to become a good writer.

~ Pawan Mishra

Pawan Mishra Art Arts And Humanities Aspiring Writers Authors Books Creative Process Creative Writing Fiction Fundamentals Of Creative Writing Fundamentals Of Writing Literature On Writing Power Of Words Quotes On Writing Reading Short Story Stories Story Writing Storytelling Tips On Writing Write Writers Writing Writing Advice Writing Craft Writing Fiction Writing Style

A writer gets to live yet another life every time she creates a new story.

~ Pawan Mishra

Pawan Mishra Aspiring Writers Authors Books Creative People Creative Process Creative Writing Creativity Fiction Fundamentals Of Creative Writing Fundamentals Of Writing Literature On Writing Power Of Words Quotes On Writing Reading Short Story Stories Story Writing Storytelling Tips On Writing Write Writers Writing Writing Advice Writing Craft Writing Fiction Writing Style

Writing a story is like going on a date—you will spoil it if you aren't living in the moment.

~ Pawan Mishra

Pawan Mishra Aspiring Writers Authors Books Creative People Creative Process Creative Writing Creativity Fiction Focus On Writing Fundamentals Of Creative Writing Fundamentals Of Writing Literature On Writing Power Of Words Quotes On Writing Reading Short Story Stories Story Writing Storytelling Tips On Writing Write Writers Writing Writing Advice Writing Craft Writing Fiction Writing Style

Tell a story in lesser and simpler words.

~ Pawan Mishra

Pawan Mishra Aspiring Writers Authors Books Creative Writing Fiction Fundamentals Of Creative Writing Fundamentals Of Writing Literature On Writing Power Of Words Quotes On Writing Reading Short Story Stories Story Writing Storytelling Tips On Writing Write Writers Writing Writing Advice Writing Craft Writing Fiction Writing Style

Don’t break the rules when you haven’t fully figured them out yet.

~ Pawan Mishra

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Dreams are good at playing with your memory. They love leaving no trace behind and hate to show up once again in the morning.

~ Pawan Mishra

Pawan Mishra Aspiring Writers Authors Books Capture Dreams Creative People Creative Process Creative Writing Creativity Fiction Fundamentals Of Creative Writing Fundamentals Of Writing Imagination Literature On Writing Power Of Words Quotes On Writing Reading Remember Dreams Short Story Stories Story Writing Storytelling Tips On Writing Write Writers Writing Writing Advice Writing Craft Writing Fiction Writing Style

The good writing ideas don’t have to be about political turmoil, mass killings, capitalism, racism, injustice, etc. Find that one idea that has deep roots in your heart.

~ Pawan Mishra

Pawan Mishra Aspiring Writers Authors Books Creative People Creative Process Creative Writing Creativity Fiction Fundamentals Of Creative Writing Fundamentals Of Writing Literature On Writing Power Of Words Quotes On Writing Reading Short Story Stories Story Writing Storytelling Tips On Writing Write Writers Writing Writing Advice Writing Craft Writing Fiction Writing From The Heart Writing Style

Create a world in front of your readers where they can taste, smell, touch, hear, see, and move. Else they are likely going to move on to another book.

~ Pawan Mishra

Pawan Mishra Aspiring Writers Authors Books Creative People Creative Process Creative Writing Creativity Fiction Fundamentals Of Creative Writing Fundamentals Of Writing Imagination Literature On Writing Power Of Words Quotes On Writing Reading Short Story Show Don T Tell Stories Story Writing Storytelling Tactile Imagery Tips On Writing Write Writers Writing Writing Advice Writing Craft Writing Fiction Writing Style

A writer can do without food for a few hours, but not without the sight of books.

~ Pawan Mishra

Pawan Mishra Aspiring Writers Authors Books Creative People Creative Process Creative Writing Creativity Fiction Fundamentals Of Creative Writing Fundamentals Of Writing Literature On Writing Power Of Words Quotes On Writing Reading Short Story Stories Story Writing Storytelling Tips On Writing Write Writers Writing Writing Advice Writing Craft Writing Fiction Writing Style

Turn those deep feelings and obsessions of your heart into captivating pieces of literature.

~ Pawan Mishra

Pawan Mishra Artist Arts And Humanities Aspiring Writers Authors Books Creative People Creative Process Creative Writing Creativity Fiction Fundamentals Of Creative Writing Fundamentals Of Writing Literature On Writing Power Of Words Quotes On Writing Reading Short Story Stories Story Writing Storytelling Tips On Writing Write Writers Writing Writing Advice Writing Craft Writing Fiction Writing From The Heart Writing Style

Ideas either age like fine wine or rot like potatoes over time.

~ Pawan Mishra

Pawan Mishra Aspiring Writers Authors Books Creative People Creative Process Creative Writing Creativity Fiction Fundamentals Of Creative Writing Fundamentals Of Writing Literature On Writing Power Of Words Quotes On Writing Reading Short Story Stories Story Writing Storytelling Tips On Writing Write Writers Writing Writing Advice Writing Craft Writing Fiction Writing From The Heart Writing Ideas Writing Style

If you are a singer, you must sing. If you are a dancer, you must dance. If you are a writer, you must write. Don’t suffocate your heart.

~ Pawan Mishra

Pawan Mishra Artist Arts And Humanities Aspiring Writers Authors Books Creative People Creative Process Creative Writing Creativity Fiction Fundamentals Of Creative Writing Fundamentals Of Writing Literature On Writing Power Of Words Quotes On Writing Reading Short Story Stories Story Writing Storytelling Tips On Writing Write Writers Writing Writing Advice Writing Craft Writing Fiction Writing Style

As you become a better writer, the writing becomes more difficult. You toil harder to tell a story in a lesser number of words.

~ Pawan Mishra

Pawan Mishra Aspiring Writers Authors Books Creative People Creative Process Creative Writing Creativity Fiction Fundamentals Of Creative Writing Fundamentals Of Writing Literature On Writing Power Of Words Quotes On Writing Reading Short Story Stories Story Writing Storytelling Tips On Writing Write Writers Writing Writing Advice Writing Craft Writing Fiction Writing Style

Don’t interrupt when your characters take a flight of their own.

~ Pawan Mishra

Pawan Mishra Aspiring Writers Authors Books Character Development Creative People Creative Process Creative Writing Creativity Fiction Fundamentals Of Creative Writing Fundamentals Of Writing Letting Characters Drive Literature On Writing Power Of Words Quotes On Writing Reading Short Story Stories Story Writing Storytelling Tips On Writing Write Writers Writing Writing Advice Writing Craft Writing Fiction Writing Style

Cliches are the viruses that infect your writing with diseases.

~ Pawan Mishra

Pawan Mishra Aspiring Writers Authors Books Clichés Creative Writing Fiction Fundamentals Of Creative Writing Fundamentals Of Writing Literature On Writing Power Of Words Quotes On Writing Reading Short Story Stories Story Writing Storytelling Tips On Writing Write Writers Writing Writing Advice Writing Craft Writing Fiction Writing Style

If you think there is no time to write now, there would never be.

~ Pawan Mishra

Pawan Mishra Aspiring Writers Authors Books Creative People Creative Process Creative Writing Creativity Fiction Fundamentals Of Creative Writing Fundamentals Of Writing Literature On Writing Power Of Words Quotes On Writing Reading Short Story Stories Story Writing Storytelling Tips On Writing Write Writers Writing Writing Advice Writing Craft Writing Fiction Writing Style

If certain aspect needs to be inconsistent, it must better be consistently inconsistent throughout the story.

~ Pawan Mishra

Pawan Mishra Aspiring Writers Authors Books Creative People Creative Process Creative Writing Creativity Fiction Fundamentals Of Creative Writing Fundamentals Of Writing Literature On Writing Power Of Words Quotes On Writing Reading Short Story Stories Story Writing Storytelling Tips On Writing Write Writers Writing Writing Advice Writing Craft Writing Fiction Writing Style

All of us possess a reading vocabulary as big as a lake but draw from a writing vocabulary as small as a pond. The good news is that the acts of searching and gathering always expand the number of usable words.

~ Roy Peter Clark

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The most important step in developing skillful speech is to think before speaking.

~ Allan Lokos

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Inspiration surrounds us, the creation is our responsibility as artists.-Lyn Crain

~ Lyn Crain

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I'd written Smashed not because I was ambitious and not because writing down my feelings was cathartic (it felt more like playing one's own neurosurgeon sans anesthesia). No. I'd made a habit--and eventually a profession--of memoir because I hail from one of those families where shows of emotions are discouraged.

~ Koren Zailckas

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They say instant communication is not communication at all but merely a frantic, trivial, nerve-wracking bombardment of clichés, threats, fads, fashions, gibberish and advertising. However, who has not hung on a scripture, a quote, a statement, only to stumble upon the key phrase that brought all things to a turning point? The greatest sermons and speeches were pieced together by illuminating thoughts that powered men to surpass their own commonness. It is the sparkling magic of letters forming words, and those words colliding with passion, that makes statements into wisdom.

~ Shannon L. Alder

Shannon L. Alder Bits Of Wisdom Brevity In Emotion Common Communication Connections Emotional Connections Instant Communication Letters Passion Philosophers Positive Thinking Punch Quotes Revelation Scribes Sermons Summarized Simplification Statements Summation Of Thought Technology Thinkers To The Point Wisdom Words Writers Writing Craft Writing Quotes

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

~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Matshona Dhliwayo Author Quotes Creativity Quotes Greatness Quotes Ink Inspirational Quotes For Writers Intellectual Intelligence Quotes Knowledge Quotes Learning Quotes Might Quotes Pen Sword Talent Quotes Wisdom Quotations Wisdom Quotes Wise Quotations Wise Quotes Wise Sayings Quotes Wise Words Quotes Writing Advice Writing Craft Writing Life Writing Process Writing Quotes

The fictive is an emormous territory it turns out, its boundaries vague, and there is little certainty about where it begins and ends.

~ Siri Hustvedt

Siri Hustvedt Boundaries Fiction Writing Craft

Treat backstory like a pungent spice. I say this to encourage you to picture a jalapeno pepper that can set your mouth on fire, every time you even think about adding backstory into your book. What you need is subtlety.

~ Sandy Vaile

Sandy Vaile Backstory Fiction Writing Craft Writing Quotes

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

Sandy Vaile Backstory Fiction Writing Advice Writing Craft Writing Quotes

Delayed gratification hints that something terrible is going to happen, and then delays the resolution. It’s that interval between the promise of something awful and it actually happening, where suspense resides.

~ Sandy Vaile

Sandy Vaile Delayed Gratification Fiction Hook Literary Devices Suspense Writing Craft Writing Quotes

Suspense doesn’t always have to be about physical danger. Making the reader worry is a universal concept that can be applied to any story.

~ Sandy Vaile

Sandy Vaile Fiction Hook Literary Devices Suspense Writing Craft Writing Quotes

I realized that my life of late had consisted of far too much dialogue and not enough exposition. I imagined an angry, bespectacled English teacher slashing his pen through the transcript of my life, wondering how someone could possibly say so much and think so little.

~ Catherine Lowell

Catherine Lowell Dialogue Exposition Fiction Literary Analysis Writing Writing Craft Writing Process

Does Carthage even have forests? Did Virgil know for sure or was it just convenient for his story? Virgil was a professional liar. This would not be the only place where he pruned the truth until it was as artificial as an espaliered pear tree against a wall, forced into an expedient shape and bearing the demanded fruit.

~ Kij Johnson

Kij Johnson Fiction Inspiration Technique Writing Craft

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

Charles Finch Fiction Writing Writing Advice Writing Craft Writing Process

It is sometimes the minor, not the major, characters in a novel who hold the author's affection longest. It may be that one loses affection for the major characters because they suck off so much energy as one pushes them through their lives.

~ Larry Mcmurtry

Larry Mcmurtry Characters Fiction Writing Craft

People should know better than to be an ass in front of writers. We immortalize things. Lots of things. And we take liberties with character descriptions.

~ Michelle M. Pillow

Michelle M. Pillow Author Character Fantasy Fiction Michelle Pillow Romance Novel Writing Writing Craft Writing Life Writing Process

I’ve learned that the creative life may or may not be the apex of human civilization, but either way it’s not what I thought it was. It doesn’t make you special and sparkly. You don’t have to walk alone. You can work in an office — I’ve worked in offices for the past 15 years and written five novels while doing it. The creative life is forgiving: You can betray it all you want, again and again, and no matter how many times you do, it will always take you back.

~ Lev Grossman

Lev Grossman Creative Process Creativity Writing Writing Advice Writing Craft

As Borges has taught us, all the books in the library are contemporary. Great poems are like granaries: they are always ready to enlarge their store.

~ William H. Gass

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