Terry Pratchett Quotes About Writing

Quotes about: Writing

• If you are going to write, say, fantasy - stop reading fantasy. You've already read too much. Read other things; read westerns, read history, read anything that seems interesting, because if you only read fantasy and then you start to write fantasy, all you're going to do is recycle the same old stuff and move it around a bit.

  Terry Pratchett

  Moving, Reading, Writing

• The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.

  Terry Pratchett

  Writing, Stories, Firsts

  Twitter post from Jan 30, 2018

• Writing is the most fun you can have by yourself.

  Terry Pratchett

  Sex, Fun, Writing

• There's no such thing as writer's block. That was invented by people in California who couldn't write.

  Terry Pratchett

  Block, Writing, California

  Interview with SFBC's Joyce Wiley, www.lspace.org. 1996.

• I read anything that’s going to be interesting. But you don’t know what it is until you’ve read it. Somewhere in a book on the history of false teeth there’ll be the making of a novel.

  Terry Pratchett

  Book, Writing, Interesting

• My advice is this. For Christ's sake, don't write a book that is suitable for a kid of 12 years old, because the kids who read who are 12 years old are reading books for adults. I read all of the James Bond books when I was about 11, which was approximately the right time to read James Bond books.

  Terry Pratchett

  Book, Reading, Writing

  "Terry Pratchett: 'If I'd known what a progressive brain disease could do for your PR profile I may have had one earlier'". Interview with Deborah Orr, www.independent.co.uk. November 29, 2008.

• I'm not the world's greatest expert, but I would have thought that the wizards, witches, trolls, unicorns, ... broomsticks and spells would have given her a clue?' - when J.K. Rowling insisted she wasn't writing fantasy.

  Terry Pratchett

  Writing, Experts, Wizards

• They think written words are even more powerful,’ whispered the toad. ‘They think all writing is magic. Words worry them. See their swords? They glow blue in the presence of lawyers.

  Terry Pratchett

  Powerful, Writing, Thinking

• Let grammar, punctuation, and spelling into your life! Even the most energetic and wonderful mess has to be turned into sentences.

  Terry Pratchett

  Writing, Punctuation, Wonderful

• I have to write because if I don't get something down then after a while I feel it's going to bang the side of my head off.

  Terry Pratchett

  Writing, Sides, Bangs

• You can't build a plot out of jokes. You need tragic relief. And you need to let people know that when a lot of frightened people are running around with edged weaponry, there are deaths. Stupid deaths, usually. I'm not writing 'The A-Team' - if there's a fight going on, people will get hurt. Not letting this happen would be a betrayal.

  Terry Pratchett

  Running, Hurt, Betrayal

• Fantasy doesn't have to be fantastic. American writers in particular find this much harder to grasp. You need to have your feet on the ground as much as your head in the clouds. The cute dragon that sits on your shoulder also craps all down your back, but this makes it more interesting because it gives it an added dimension.

  Terry Pratchett

  Cute, Writing, Clouds

• Rings try to find their way back to their owner. Someone ought to write a book about it.

  Terry Pratchett

  Book, Writing, Trying

• [Science fiction is] out in the mainstream now. You can tell by the way mainstream literary authors pillage SF while denying they're writing it!

  Terry Pratchett

  Writing, Fiction, Way

• The girls were expected to grow up to be somebody's wife. They were also expected to read and write, those being considered soft indoor jobs that were too fiddly for the boys.

  Terry Pratchett

  Girl, Jobs, Growing Up

• I would like permission to fetch a note from my mother, sir' Ridcully sighed. 'Rincewind, you once informed me, to my everlasting puzzlement, that you never knew your mother because she ran away before you were born. Distinctly remember writing it down in my diary. Would you like another try?' 'Permission to go and find my mother?'

  Terry Pratchett

  Mother, Writing, Trying

• I certainly don't sit down and plan a book out before I write it. There's a phrase I use called "The Valley Full of Clouds." Writing a novel is as if you are going off on a journey across a valley. The valley is full of mist, but you can see the top of a tree here and the top of another tree over there. And with any luck you can see the other side of the valley. But you cannot see down into the mist. Nevertheless, you head for the first tree.

  Terry Pratchett

  Book, Writing, Journey

• Well, the traveling teachers do come through every few months," said the Baron. "Yes, sir, I know, sir, and they're useless, sir. They teach facts, not understanding. It's like teaching people about forests by showing them a saw. I want a proper school, sir, to teach reading and writing, and most of all thinking, sir, so people can find what they're good at, because someone doing what they really like is always an asset to any country, and too often people never find out until it's too late.

  Terry Pratchett

  Country, Teacher, Teaching

• I'm a fantasy writer, called a fantasy writer. But there's very little, apart from one or two basic concepts in 'I Shall Wear Midnight,' which are in fact fantasy. You have sticks that fly, but they're practical broomsticks, with a bloody great strap that you can hold on to so you don't fall off. And you try not to use them too often.

  Terry Pratchett

  Fall, Writing, Two

• In all seriousness, people think that it's the ideas that are important. Well, everyone has ideas, all the time. I tend to write mine down and remember them, but at some point you have to apply the bum to the seat and knock out about sixty five thousand words - that's how long a novel is.

  Terry Pratchett

  Writing, Thinking, Ideas

• The point is that descriptive writing is very rarely entirely accurate and during the reign of Olaf Quimby II as Patrician of Ankh-Morpork some legislation was passed in a determined attempt to ?put a stop to this sort of thing and introduce some honest.

  Terry Pratchett

  Writing, Ankh, Reign

  Terry Pratchett (2012). “The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld”, p.16, Harper Collins

• Once you have your character sitting right there in your head, all you really need to do is wind them up, put them down, and simply write down what they do, say, or think.

  Terry Pratchett

  Character, Writing, Thinking

  Source: boingboing.net

• What I've always said was, hang in there, let me write what I want to write, and you'll probably like it.

  Terry Pratchett

  Writing, Want, Said

• When people say "How do you write a book, how does it all happen?" I say, you line things up, and you line them up as actually as you possibly can, but sooner or later the book has got momentum and it's moving along under that momentum. It's like a sculpture, if you're working with the grain of the wood, the wood will start defining what shape it's going to become.

  Terry Pratchett

  Moving, Book, Writing

  Source: www.theguardian.com

• If you get the characters right you've done sometimes nearly half the work. I sometimes find I get the characters right then the characters will often help me write the book - not what they look like that's not very important - what people look like is not about their character. You have to describe the shape they leave in the world, how they react to things, what effect they have on people and you do that by telling their story.

  Terry Pratchett

  Book, Writing, Character

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