Best 30386 quotes in «writing quotes» category

Introduce your main characters and themes in the first third of your novel. If you are writing a plot-driven genre novel make sure all your major themes/plot elements are introduced in the first third, which you can call the introduction. Develop your themes and characters in your second third, the development. Resolve your themes, mysteries and so on in the final third, the resolution.

Introspection and preserved writings give us far more insight into the ways of past humans than we have into the ways of past dinosaurs. For that reason, I'm optimistic that we can eventually arrive at convincing explanations for these broadest patterns of human history.

Introverts don't like small talk conversation, but they typically don't mind writing. The more people can "see" you on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or a blog, the more they will feel like they know you, even though you don't have one-on-one interaction with them.

Introverts need to trust their gut and share their ideas as powerfully as they can. This does not mean aping extroverts; ideas can be shared quietly, they can be communicated in writing, they can be packaged into highly produced lectures, they can be advanced by allies. The trick for introverts is to honor their own styles instead of allowing themselves to be swept up by prevailing norms.

In twenty years I've never had a day when I didn't have to think about someone else's needs. And this means the writing has to be fitted around it.

In undergraduate classes, I often see writers who are still simply imitating. I mean, we all imitate - that's how we learn to speak or write in the first place - but they're writing a Dean Koontz novel or something.

Invariably, it is this for which I write: the joy ... of an argument firmly made, like a nail straightly driven, its head flush to the plank.

Invention is almost the only literary labour which blindness cannot obstruct.

Investors will sort of like write the check and then, despite a lot of promises, don't usually do that much; sometimes they do.

Invitations to speak upon public occasions are among my most grievous embarrassments. Why is it inferred that one is or can be a public speaker because she has written a book? Writing is a very private business. I do not know any other occupation which requires so much privacy unless it is a life of prayer or a life of crime.

In writing advertising it must always be kept in mind that the customer often knows more about the goods than the advertising writers because they have had experience in buying them.

In writing, as in medicine, there are no short cuts. You need stamina.

In writing for movies, you obviously want to resolve things and have a sense of completion at the end - in an ideal way.

In writing if it takes over 30 minutes to write the first two paragraphs select another subject.

In writing I found something I could do at least as well as my peers, if not better.

In writing music, the structure of each piece is a very important factor.

In writing poetry, all of one's attention is focused on some inner voice.

In writing Snowboarding to Nirvana I have intentionally written an inspirational spiritual adventure story, which will hopefully provide people with metaphysical techniques, spiritual knowledge, hope and a brighter view of life.

In writing, the connection between storyteller and audience is just as important. By using some subtle devices, a narrator can reach out to the reader and say, 'We’re in this together.'

In writing, you discover interior sonorities in words. Dipthongs sound differently beneath the pen. One hears them with their sounds divorced.

In youth men are apt to write more wisely than they really know or feel; and the remainder of life may be not idly spent in realizing and convincing themselves of the wisdom which they uttered long ago.

In writing a novel, the writer must be able to identify emotionally and intellectually with two or three or four contradicting perspectives and give each of them very a convincing voice. It's like playing tennis with yourself and you have to be on both sides of the yard. You have to be on both sides, or all sides if there are more than two sides.

In writing, as in life, faults are endured without disgust when they are associated with transcendent merit, and may be sometimes recommended to weak judgments by the lustre which they obtain from their union with excellence; but it is the business of those who presume to superintend the taste or morals of mankind to separate delusive combinations, and distinguish that which may be praised from that which can only be excused.

In writing I search for believability, simplicity, and emotional impact.

In writing practice, there's no direction. You enter your own mind and follow it where it takes you. We have a great need to connect with our own mind and our own true self. And all of us have a story to tell.

In writing ... remember that the biggest stories are not written about wars, or about politics, or even murders. The biggest stories are written about the things which draw human beings closer together.

In writing the book I wanted to make it very clear that I feel prostitution should be decriminalized. But some people might have breezed by those aspects that others took the time to notice. In All I Could Bare, I hope I relate in a conversational way how stripping is a lot like other types of work.

In writing the history of a disease, every philosophical hypothesis whatsoever, that has previously occupied the mind of the author, should lie in abeyance.

In writing you work toward a result you won't see for years, and can't be sure you'll ever see. It takes stamina and self-mastery and faith. It demands those things of you, then gives them back with a little extra, a surprise to keep you coming. It toughens you and clears your head. I could feel it happening. I was saving my life with every word I wrote, and I knew it.

In writing biography, fact and fiction shouldn't be mixed. And if they are, the fictional points should be printed in red ink, the facts printed in black ink.

In writing, fidelity to fact leads eventually to the poetry of truth.

In writing, habit seems to be a much stronger force than either willpower or inspiration.

In writing I found a way to make silence and to be silent. The short story has a lot more silence than the novel and that is its success.

In writing, I shall always confine myself strictly to the truth, except when it is attended with inconvenience.

In writing of Indian culture, I am highly conscious of my own subjectivity; arguably, there is more than one Indian culture, and certainly more than one view of Indian culture.

In writing with detail, you are turning to face the world. It is a deeply political act, because you are not staying in the heat of your own emotions. You are offering up some good solid bread for the hungry.

In writing, you must kill all your darlings.

In your arms I forget what the yarn knows of sweaters. I forget how to hold myself together. So if I unfold now like a love letter tell me you'll write back soon. Tell me you'll still come untethered.

I obviously prefer writing novels but I take my journalism very seriously, and I enjoy doing it between novels. It gives me an opportunity to move in the outside world.

In [writing] fiction, every sentence is its own reward.

In writing, I'm totally anti-plans of any kind. All my attempts to plan and plot novels have come to grief, and in expensive ways.

In writing lyrics - well, for me, anyway - it's about getting into character, you know? 'Who is writing this?' In the case of the original 'Thick As A Brick,' supposedly a precocious, very young child who's fantasizing about his future and the context of all the confusing elements to which school boys are subjected at that time.

In writing novels, you have to believe in yourself or there would be no way to sustain it. But you also have to give good evidence regularly for having that faith in self-either with quality goods or with, at least, "good efforts." Working hard will do when inspiration is not forthcoming.

In writing the autobiography, I can really chuckle when I look at the songs. I was acting out the part. I saw myself as a victim.

in writing we live life twice: once in the experience, and again in recording and reflecting upon our experience.

In You Are Not Dead Wendy Xu breaks all the old rules that have never done us any favors anyway. She writes beautifully, noticing who we are, and letting us see ourselves with a little more humanity, a little more humor, a little more humility. I'm happy to have read this book.

In writing a little tragedy, 'The Gaol Gate,' I made the scenario in three lines, 'He is an informer; he is dead; he is hanged.' I wrote that play very quickly.

In writing and speaking, three is more satisfying than any other number.

In writing, punctuation plays the role of body language. It helps readers hear you the way you want to be heard.

In writing scripts now, having made a film, I'm much more conscious of what it means to shoot and edit a movie, and that affects the writing.