Some of you, I know will be embarking on the So You Think You Can Write adventure this month.
Obviously, my advice to you would be to read Liz Fielding's Little Book of Writing Romance, but here are a few words on the subject of writing from great writers and teachers to fire you up.
"Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia." - Kurt Vonnegut
"Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing." - Henry Miller Henry Miller on Writing
"If you are using dialogue—say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech." -
John Steinbeck The Paris Review
"Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s." - Stephen King On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
"The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof shit
detector. This is the writer’s radar and all great writers have had
it." - Ernest Hemingway Ernest Hemingway on Writing,
"You begin to string words together like beads to tell a story. You are
desperate to communicate, to edify or entertain, to preserve moments of
grace or joy or transcendence, to make real or imagined events come
alive. But you cannot will this to happen. It is a matter of persistence
and faith and hard work. So you might as well just go ahead and get
started." - Ann Lamott Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
2 comments:
I particularly like the Stephen King quote, Liz. So many stories are spoiled because they leave too little to the reader's imagination.
Me too, Gail. It's why I love listening to plays on the radio so much - the pictures are better!
Post a Comment