“Writing is part intuition and part trial and error, but mostly it’s very hard work.”
— Cheryl Strayed
Monday Quoteday
“This sentence has five words.
Here are five more words.
Five-word sentences are fine.
But several together become monotonous.
Listen to what is happening.
The writing is getting boring.
The sound of it drones.
It’s like a stuck record.
The ear demands some variety.
Now listen.
I vary the sentence length, and I create music.
Music.
The writing sings.
It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony.
I use short sentences.
And I use sentences of medium length.
And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals—sounds that say listen to this, it is important.”
— Gary Provost
Monday Quoteday
“Short stories do not say this happened and this happened and this happened. They are a microcosm and a magnification rather than a linear progression.” — Isobelle Carmody
Monday Quoteday
“When in doubt, the rule of threes is a rule that plays well with all of storytelling. When describing a thing? No more than three details. A character’s arc? Three beats. A story? Three acts. An act? Three sequences. A plot point culminating in a mystery of a twist? At least three mentions throughout the tale. This is an old rule, and a good one. It’s not universal — but it’s a good place to start. ”
— Chuck Wendig
Monday Quoteday
“When you start off, you have to deal with the problems of failure. You need to be thickskinned, to learn that not every project will survive. A freelance life, a life in the arts, is sometimes like putting messages in bottles, on a desert island, and hoping that someone will find one of your bottles and open it and read it, and put something in a bottle that will wash its way back to you: appreciation, or a commission, or money, or love. And you have to accept that you may put out a hundred things for every bottle that winds up coming back.” — Neil Gaiman, in his 2012 commencement speech at the University of Arts
Monday Quoteday
“One can be absolutely truthful and sincere even though admittedly the most outrageous liar. Fiction and invention are of the very fabric of life.” — Henry Miller
Monday Quoteday
“Write while the heat is in you. … The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with.” — Henry David Thoreau
Monday Quoteday
“Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now.” — Annie Dillard
Monday Quoteday
“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is … the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” — Mark Twain
Monday Quoteday
“There is only one plot—things are not what they seem.” — Jim Thompson