Best 66 quotes in «how to write quotes» category

A writer is never alone, he is always with himself

A writer reports on the universe. When he presents his credentials, the gates of heaven and hell are equally opened to him. He can hear the devil’s defense and god’s accusations. The guards at the king’s heart let him in. The writer can be anything and any one he wants. When he writes he is a god, he creates.

Books used to be written by humanity's greatest thinkers, or at least our greatest entertainers. Now every halfwit can publish his verbal diarrhea. And millions of shitty, mediocre, uninspired, trite books are drowning out mankind's greatest literary accomplishments.

Basically the self-publishing industry's business model is based on selling you your own book. You're giving them money so that you can feel like a writer.

Before you take anyone's advice, check the sales rank of their own books. If their Amazon sales rank is somewhere around 700,000 or worse, they're barely selling one book per month, if even that. Why would you follow their advice? They have no idea what they're talking about. They're rookies pretending to be experts. It's almost like they're role playing. They're make-believe writers, the way kids are make-believe astronauts or pirates.

Chances are, even your friends and family aren't really interested in reading your self-published book. Your mom might read it to do you a favor, but if it wasn't written by her precious little angel, she probably couldn't care less about it.

But today, something begins to shift. I see that there might be some way I can take the raw material of my life and transform it into something that has order and structure. I can make sense of what, until now, has been senseless.

Conformists are boring. Artists are interesting. That's the difference between a wannabe writer and a real writer.

Don't believe in everything that is written. Not everything that is written is true

Everyone is a raconteur without realizing it. We speak to our friends, we speak to our doctors and therapists about the nothing-meaning nonsense that goes on in our lives, but the difference in telling a story and complaining about the ills of one’s life is in the delivery. We can talk about how someone slighted you at work, or we can talk about how that person looked when they promptly fell down the stairs a moment after disdaining you. There, you see, is the difference: people will often notice the main but not the nuance; they will notice the face of the person yelling at them and the pitch of their shouts, but will not notice the comfort that the ululations of agony and twisted limbs lying on the bottom stile can promise.

Even if there were no more books published ever, there are still more books in existence today than anyone can read. And most of them suck. Good luck trying to find a good one. It's like finding a needle in a hay stack.

Every book has its ancestors

Great characters- They are pivotal for a great plot. THEN a solid plot: Why then? If you do not have great characters it is impossible to create a good plot, nonetheless a solid one. Once you have built great characters for the scenes, there you have it. It’s just like the movies, you cannot have a great film if the characters are frail and their lines are weak as well. I guess great world-building comes along with a good plot. If there is something that will work fine in a novel is how you will develop from the theme. You’ve got to establish a good timeline, and from there it comes a world. You see the technical matters don’t match or matter as much to me. Even a poorly written story, if there is a good plot and great characters on it will make a divine combination There are simply many cases of it over the mainstream and that even reached the big screen.

How do you feel when you read stuff written by dead authors? A visit by a ghost?

I am what I have ever read

If everyone is suddenly a writer, then no one is. It feels like cultural appropriation. You're stealing their identity. You're appropriating the one thing that is sacred to real writers. You're not a writer. You like to write. There's a difference. To you it's just a hobby, and yet you decorate yourself with stolen feathers. You give yourself a title you haven't earned and don't deserve. Just like you can't wake up one day and pretend now you're a proctologist.

If I can write, who possibly can’t. Even drawing a line in the sand is writing

If Laura was so prolific with poems, and in truth she was, then what was the problem with Megan’s request? Couldn’t Laura, with a little doing, keep stringing together line after line of words and construct, in time, a novel? It seemed logical, but there was the matter of finding an idea and sustaining it. Only fire could do that. The fire of rebellion. Mario Vargas Llosa had not used the term “fire” exactly, but rather had discussed the presence of “seditious roots” that could “dynamite the world” the writer inhabited. He claimed that writing stories was an exercise in freedom and quarreling—out-and-out rebellion, whether or not the writer was conscious of it. And this rebellion, Vargas Llosa reminded his readers, was why the Spanish Inquisition had strictly censored works of fiction, prohibiting them for three hundred years in the American colonies.

Have you traveled the globe? Have you been places, done things and experienced the world? Have you lived a colorful, unique life? If not, you have nothing of value to contribute to humanity. Everything you write is not based on real world experience but recycled second hand information.

How to write a book? Start writing, continue writing, finish writing.

I am sorry, I am not a writer. I simply put my thoughts on paper. Those helped by them call them a book and me a writer. Those who are not helped call it rubbish and me a fool. Both have reason.

If someone with talent creates something, it's art. When someone with no talent creates something, it's crap.

If you are writing fiction, think like a god. Release all the power of your imagination; create worlds and destroy them at your will, create as many miracles as your story needs

If you have writer’s block, write about having writer’s block, and you will no longer have it.

If you want to be a good writer, you need to be a talented artist. And artists are unique and stand out. Artists are the opposite of conformists. So by doing what everyone else is doing, you're proving your mediocrity, and your lack of artistic uniqueness. When you follow everyone else's example, you are by definition not an artist. You're a copy cat.

If you want to be a good writer, you need to be a talented artist. And artists are unique and stand out. Artists are the opposite of conformists.

. If you want to write, just write anything that comes into your mind. You will be surprised at how you can force inspiration to stand on your side.

In the past, ten authors made a million bucks each. Now a million authors make ten bucks each. Is that better? No. That's not helping anyone. Your vanity is making it harder for real writers to feed their families.

Its pretty annoying to real writers, when some unqualified, talent-free hack calls himself a writer, because it devalues the word. Millions of shitty self-published wannabe writers are giving real indie writers with real talent a bad name.

I used to be afraid about what people might say or think after reading what I had written. I am not afraid anymore, because when I write, I am not trying to prove anything to anyone, I am just expressing myself and my opinions. It’s ok if my opinions are different from those of the reader, each of us can have his own opinions. So writing is like talking, if you are afraid of writing, you may end up being afraid of talking

It wont do to say that the reader is too dumb or too lazy to keep pace with the train of thought. If the reader is lost, it's usually because the writer hasn't been careful enough

Most self-published books are kinda like dreams. Your dream was interesting to you, but when you tell others what you dreamed last night, their eyes glaze over, because your nightly hallucinations really aren't all that interesting to anyone else.

Many writers write because they’ve been there, seen that, did it and burnt their fingers

Most wannabe writers are to the book industry what cows are to the meat industry.

One author said "I write because I want to live a footprint in the sands of history.” It's hard to live a footprint in the sands of history when giants are passing through the same sands unless you are one of the giants

Never write when you are not in the mood; when you are not feeling it. If the words do not flow freely, and come to you almost magically, then put it down and do not force yourself to write in the book, or it will reflect in your writing and it will be terribly obvious.

No one has ever stood out by being a conformist.

One day I will write a book. An epitaph

Never give up. Never. Ever. Ever.

Not every self-published indie author is bad. There actually are some very good ones. But they're the exception, not the rule.

People speak even after their death. Only do speak those who have recorded their speech in writing before they die, the rest go silent forever

Pro tip: If you can't think of anything more interesting to post on social media than a picture of your cup of coffee, you are boring and you have nothing interesting to say.

Readers can only read so many books in a month. And unless you give them a really good reason to read your book, they'll prefer to read some other, more famous book. You're competing for the reader's attention. And if you don't even know that, you've already lost.

Shakespeare was one in a million. That makes you pretty unique, if there's only one million people. But when there's a hundred million people, then being one in a million means there are 100 people just as talented as you. In a country of 300 million people, there are 300 people like you. And in a world of seven billion people, you're competing with 7000 other people who are every bit as good as you. I wonder if Shakespeare would have gotten famous if he lived today, and had to compete with 7000 other Shakespeares.

Self-publishing is not nearly as easy as people think it is. Sure, you can upload some crappy manuscript online and slap some run-of-the-mill cover on it. But that doesn't mean anyone wants to read it.

The instruction here is not for every kind of writer - not for the writer of nurse books or thrillers or porno or the cheaper sort of sci-fi - though it is true that what holds for the most serious kind of fiction will generally hold for junk fiction as well. (Not everyone is capable of writing junk fiction: It requires an authentic junk mind. Most creative-writing teachers have had the experience of occasionally helping to produce, by accident, a pornographer. The most elegant techniques in the world, filtered through a junk mind, become elegant junk techniques.)

Some people feel that cheap immigrant labor is bringing down wages, which makes it impossible for Americans to earn a living. A lot of real writers feel the same way about the influx of millions of wannabe writers into their profession.

The best writers I've read possess oodles of self-doubt, yet claw their way up with each work and remain humble. Boastful ones, not so much.

On Writing About Nora Hawks I write about a female character to try, in vain, to understand two things: the purpose of life, and women.

The large companies that offer self-publishing services don't care whether you buy a copy of Dracula, a copy of Frankenstein, and a copy of Fifty Shades of Grey – or if you buy three "proof copies" of your own book. They still sold you three books. And they know that wannabe writers are so proud of their own crappy book, they'll buy a whole bunch of copies to give to their friends and family. Wannabe writers are their best customers.