Best 55 quotes of Chuck Wendig on MyQuotes

Characters exist in a flat line until we challenge them - sometimes they challenge themselves, sometimes they're challenged by other people, by nature, by robots, or by fungal infections in and around one's nether-country. Stories need conflict across the physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual spectra. Accidents, betrayals, cataclysm, desperation, excess - these are the letters in the alphabet of conflict.

Enter the story as late as you can.

In my mind, only one inviolable precept exists in terms of being a successful writer: you have to write. The unspoken sub-laws of that one precept are: to write, you must start writing and then finish writing. And then, most likely, start writing all over again because this writing "thing" is one long and endless ride on a really weird (but pretty awesome) carousel. Cue the calliope music.

Let someone else take a crack at [your story]. Sometimes, even after time has passed, we're just too close to the thing. You don't want to kill your darlings or, maybe it's the opposite: you just want to kill all of it with cleansing fire. Let someone else confirm or veto your feelings. They'll also bring new questions and complexities to the table, too.

Nobody becomes a writer overnight. Well, I'm sure somebody did, but that person's head probably went all asplodey from paroxysms of joy, fear, paranoia, guilt and uncertainty. Celebrities can be born overnight. Writer's can't. Writers are made - forged, really, in a kiln of their own madness and insecurities - over the course of many, many moons. The writer you are when you begin is not the same writer you become.

Question the Chestnuts. Chestnuts: the new name for boobs? No. NO. Why would you even say that? Get your mind out of the gutter. No, by "chestnuts" I mean, "those old pieces of writing advice that you hear as common refrain." 'Write what you know.' 'Adverbs give Baby Jesus hemorrhoids.' 'If you write a prologue, an orphan loses his sight.' All the "old saws" need to be put on the chopping block.

Read your work out loud. Don't give me that look. Read your work aloud. Don't argue. Don't fight. It will help. I promise. I promise. I guarantee it. If you find it didn't help you, lemme know. I will let you Taser me in the face. And by "me," I mean, some other guy who will be my stand-in. Probably some real estate agent or tollbooth attendant.

Remember: a story is not a vignette. It has a beginning, middle and an end. It is not merely a snapshot in time.

Speed is not an indicator of quality in terms of fiction. That's true of one's relative slowness or swiftness - taking 10 years to write a book or taking 10 days to write a book (or a comic or a film or an angry postcard) guarantees nothing in terms of how good or how bad that story is.

Story matters. Writing is important. Stories make the world go around. Many things begin as words on a page. It matters to the world. And it matters to you. Don't let anyone rob you of that. Don't rob yourself of it, either. Don't diminish. Don't dismiss. Embrace. Create. Accelerate.

Storytelling is an act of cruelty. We are cruel to our characters because to be kind is to invite boredom, and boredom in storytelling is synonymous with big doomy death-shaped death. So: be cruel to your protagonist. Rob him of something. Something important. Something he needs. A weapon. An asset. A piece of knowledge. A loved one. A DELICIOUS PIE. Take it away! Force him to operate without it. Conflict reinvigorates stale stories. New conflict, or old conflict that has evolved and grown teeth.

The easiest way to separate yourself from the unformed blobby mass of "aspiring" writers is to a) actually write and b) actually finish. That's how easy it is to clamber up the ladder to the second echelon. Write. And finish what you write. That's how you break away from the pack and leave the rest of the sickly herd for the hungry wolves of shame and self-doubt. And for all I know, actual wolves.

The story goes that every Jedi constructs his own lightsaber, and every penmonkey constructs his own pen. Meaning, we all find our own way through this crazy tangle of possibility. This isn't an art, a craft, a career, or an obsession that comes with easy answers and isn't given over to bullshit dichotomies. We do what we do in the way we do it and hope it's right. Read advice. Weigh it in your hand and determine its value. But at the end of the day - and at the start of it - what you should be doing is writing. Because thinking about writing and talking about writing just plain isn't writing.

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.

Write like you write, like you can't help but write, and your voice will become yours and yours alone. It'll take time but it'll happen as long as you let it. Own your voice, for your voice is your own. Once you know where your voice lives, you no longer have to worry so much about being derivative.

Write til your fingers bleed.

Writing advice is not the product of an equation. "If you do X, then Y will occur" is false in this instance. "If you name a character John Q. Hymenbreaker, your book will be an instant bestseller" is crazy-talk. Writing advice is not about providing certifiable answers. It is about making suggestions.

Writing is the act of creation. Put words on page. Words to sentences, sentences to paragraphs, paragraphs to 7-book epic fantasy cycles with books so heavy you could choke a hippo. But don't give writing too much power, either. A wizard controls his magic; it doesn't control him. Push aside lofty notions and embrace the workmanlike aesthetic. Hammers above magic wands; nails above eye-of-newt. The magic will return when you're done. The magic is what you did, not what you're doing.

Writing relies on very few things, my friend. All you need to write is your brain, a way to convey the story into existence (pen, computer, whatever), and a place in which to do it (office, kitchen table, lunar brothel).

You can feel good about failure. Failure means you did something. You finished the story even if it wasn't what you'd hoped. Failure means you're learning. Growing. Doing.

You've got all these characters and yet, you're hovering over one character like a fly over a stinky diaper. Realize that you've got a kickass superpower: you can possess and take-over anybody inside the story. With the power of Point-of-View, you can drag us along for the ride. You can shove us into their eyes, their minds, you can force us to piggyback on their experiences past and present. Sometimes untangling a knotted-up tale means looking at it from different eyes: what better eyes than those of the other characters inside the story?

A HUG IS LIKE VIOLENCE MADE OF LOVE.

ALL ARE WELCOME. (NO FIGHTING.) That rule is simple on the surface, but not easy in the execution, because Maz Kanata's castle has been a meeting place since time immemorial-- a nexus point drawing together countless lines of allegiance and opposition, a place not only where friend and foe can meet, but where complex conflicts are worn down flat so that all may sit, have a drink and a meal, listen to a song, and broker whatever deals their hearts or politics require. That's why the flags outside her castle represent hundreds of cities and civilizations and guilds from before forever. The galaxy is not now, nor has it ever been, two polar forces battling for supremacy. It has been thousands of forces: a tug-of-war not with as ingle rope but a spider's web of influence, dominance, and desire. Clans and cults, tribes and families, governments and anti-governments. Queens, satraps, warlords! Diplomats, buccaneers, droids! Slicers, spicers, ramblers, and gamblers! To repeat: ALL ARE WELCOME. (NO FIGHTING.)

All hail the light, the dark, and the grey.

All under the pretense of military application.” He pouts. “No pretense about it. Remember, the Internet was a military application. And now look at how it’s changed our culture.

(...) exposure is not a measurable resource. If someone asks you to write for exposure, ask them how much exposure. Like, have them measure it. "Will it be ten picameters of exposure? I usually ask at least seven nanoliters' worth." If they can prove it, fuck yeah, great. But exposure is a hard thing to prove. Let me utter my refrain yet again: Writers, like hikers, can die from exposure.

Failure is an instruction manual written in scar tissue.

Failure. Never before has a thing gotten such a bad rap as failure. And why wouldn't it? It's failure. In a video game, failure means to fucking die, to drop into a pit of lava while the princess remains unsaved (oh, sexist video games, when will the lady plumber save the prince instead of the other way around?). You fail a class and it's like -- *poop noise* -- you failed, you're held back, time is wasted, money is lost, you suck, you stupid person. Hell with that. Failure is brilliant. Failure is how we learn. Every great success and every kick-ass creator is the product of a hundred failures, a thousand, some epic-big, some micro-tiny. We learn the right moves by taking the wrong turns. Failure should not drag you into the pits of personal despair but rather leave you empowered. Failure is an instructional manual written in scar tissue.

Florida: America's hot, moist land-wang.

Here are the two states in which you may exist: person who writes, or person who does not. If you write: you are a writer. If you do not write: you are not. Aspiring is a meaningless null state that romanticizes Not Writing. It’s as ludicrous as saying, “I aspire to pick up that piece of paper that fell on the floor.” Either pick it up or don’t. I don’t want to hear about how your diaper’s full. Take it off or stop talking about it.

He's heard tales of the Clone Wars -tales spoken by his own father. He knows how war goes. It's not many wars, but just one, drawn out again and again, cut up into slices so it seems more manageable.

Humankind was a disease. The earth was the body. Climate change was the fever.

I don’t know what I’m doing here, either. I suspect that the moment I have it figured out, I’ll probably die half a second later.

I love you in the future tense: I will love you, tomorrow and the day after and the day after that until there are no more days left for us.

I’m a certified bad-ass indestructible bitch. The sun tries to burn me, I’ll kick him in his fiery balls. I don’t need no stinking suntan lotion.

In them and between them flourished the heat of life, the madness of love, and the sudden absolute certainty of the end of all that they knew.

I would straight up fuck a snowman right now, she says. Just to cool down. - Miriam Black

May the Force be with you, mister.” “You too, kid. You too.

Moon in the sky, stars out, the wide-open expanse of nothing: it made him feel free and alive as the daytime never did.

No, I just mean … I’m not into … this.” “This?” Her scowl deepens and her teeth bare. “Aliens?” ”Women.” “Oh. Oh.” “Yes, oh.” “Oh.

Nothing except the desire between them, the ground below them, the night above.

Not it. Her. Give the Falcon some respect, kid.

once, if you told people you were self-published, they'd look at you like you were a smelly old jobless hobo just come off a dusty boxcar with soupcan shoes and a hat made from a coyote skull.

Question marks are shaped like hooks for a reason: they will hook the reader and drag them deeper into the story

Science is trumped by ignorance when the ignorant are given a vote.

She gets on her tippy-toes and kisses him. Long, slow, deep. The kind of kiss where you can feel little pieces of your soul trading places as mouths open and breath mingles.

Story should be a descent -- the feeling that there is an intense gravity to the narrative that draws you down, down, down.

Storytellers think they're writing for the audience. They're writing, in a way, to hurt the audience.

That’s why we gotta do good things now. Make good decisions. Try to move the rudder long before the boat ever gets near the iceberg, right?

The rebellion is home to all kinds.