Sol Stein Quotes

• In our not-yet-acknowledged secret garden lie the seeds of some of our best not-yet-written stories

  Sol Stein

  Lying, Garden, Secret

  Sol Stein (2014). “How to Grow a Novel: The Most Common Mistakes Writers Make and How to Overcome Them”, p.68, St. Martin's Press

  45 Copy quote

• The biggest difference between a writer and a would-be writer is their attitude toward rewriting. . . . Unwillingness to revise usually signals an amateur.

  Sol Stein

  Attitude, Differences, Would Be

  Sol Stein (2014). “Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies”, p.277, St. Martin's Press

  7 Copy quote

• To create tension, dialogue needs to be stretched out. That is, characters should not be immediately responsive.

  Sol Stein

  Writing, Character, Needs

  4 Copy quote

• Our instinct as human beings is to provide answers, to ease tension. As writers our job is the opposite, to create tension and not dispel it immediately.

  Sol Stein

  Jobs, Opposites, Answers

  Sol Stein (2014). “Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies”, p.106, St. Martin's Press

  6 Copy quote

• Dialogue is a lean language in which every word counts.

  Sol Stein

  Writing, Language, Dialogue

  Sol Stein (2014). “Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies”, p.113, St. Martin's Press

  7 Copy quote

• A lawyer's job is to manipulate the skeletons in other people's closets.

  Sol Stein

  Jobs, Skeletons, People

  Sol Stein (2005). “Other People”, p.168, iUniverse

  6 Copy quote

• Readers take in dialogue one thought at a time. A frequent mistake of beginners is to combine thoughts, which may be suitable for other forms of writing but not for dialogue. Another mistake is speechifying. Three sentences at a time is tops, yet many beginners write speeches that go on and on.

  Sol Stein

  Mistake, Writing, Beginners

  4 Copy quote

• A writer writes what other people only think.

  Sol Stein

  Writing, Thinking, People

  Sol Stein (2014). “How to Grow a Novel: The Most Common Mistakes Writers Make and How to Overcome Them”, p.87, St. Martin's Press

  4 Copy quote

• Readers, transformed by film and TV, are used to seeing stories. The reading experience . . . is increasingly visual.

  Sol Stein

  Reading, Stories, Tvs

  4 Copy quote

• The expert magician seeks to deceive the mind, rather than the eye.

  Sol Stein

  Eye, Magic, Mind

  13 Copy quote

• A reader's emotions can be sparked with few words. That's the power of dialogue.

  Sol Stein

  Writing, Few Words, Emotion

  Sol Stein (2014). “Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies”, p.113, St. Martin's Press

  5 Copy quote

• Dialogue, contrary to popular view, is not a recording of actual speech; it is a semblance of speech, an invented language of exchanges that build in tempo or content toward climaxes.

  Sol Stein

  Writing, Views, Speech

  Sol Stein (2014). “Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies”, p.110, St. Martin's Press

  4 Copy quote

• Most of the time, tough, combative, adversarial dialogue is much more exciting than physical action.

  Sol Stein

  Writing, Action, Tough

  4 Copy quote

• I see manuscripts and books that are spoiled for the literary reader because they are one long stream of top-of-the-head writing, a writer telling a story without concern for precision or freshness in the use of language. Some of this storytelling reads as if it were spoken rather than written, stuffed with tired images that pop into the writer's head because they are so familiar. The top of the head is fit for growing hair, but not for generating fine prose.

  Sol Stein

  Book, Writing, Tired

  4 Copy quote

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