Writing Advice Quotes - Page 3

• When your story is ready for rewrite, cut it to the bone. Get rid of every ounce of excess fat. This is going to hurt; revising a story down to the bare essentials is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done.

  Stephen King

  Hurt, Children, Writing

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• If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn't matter a damn how you write.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Writing, Character, Passion

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• Begin with an individual, and before you know it you find that you have created a type; begin with a type, and you find that you have created - nothing.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Writing, Individual, Type

  "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz: And Other Stories".

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• Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor; the enemy of the people. It will keep you insane your whole life.

  Anne Lamott

  Positive, Positivity, Voice

  Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.28, Anchor

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• You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book, because you wrote the thing. You've been backstage. You've seen how the rabbits were smuggled into the hat. Therefore ask a reading friend or two to look at it before you give it to anyone in the publishing business. This friend should not be someone with whom you have a ­romantic relationship, unless you want to break up.

  Margaret Atwood

  Reading, Book, Writing

  "Ten rules for writing fiction". www.theguardian.com. February 20, 2010.

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• The best writing advice I ever got was "Keep moving forward, don't retreat into rewrites." The worst came from a book that said "Writing fiction is like telling lies," which just seems stupid to me.

  David B. Coe

  Lying, Stupid, Book

  Source: www.sfsignal.com

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• It's a great lesson about not being too precious about your writing. You have to try your hardest to be at the top of your game and improve every joke you can until the last possible second, and then you have to let it go. You can't be that kid standing at the top of the waterslide, overthinking it...You have to let people see what you wrote.

  Tina Fey

  Funny Motivational, Writing, Kids

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• The best writing advice I had was [in] ‘Heinlein’s Rules for Writers’ by (American science fiction author) Robert A. Heinlein. His first rule is that you must write, and I was already doing that, but his second rule is, ‘You must finish what you write,’ and that had a big impact on me.

  George R. R. Martin

  Writing, Impact, Advice

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• 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

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• Don't say it was delightful; make us say delightful when we've read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers Please will you do the job for me.

  C. S. Lewis

  Jobs, Writing, Wonderful

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• 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.

  Chuck Wendig

  Baby, Jesus, Block

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• I was reluctant to talk about my kids on the blog. I kept telling myself, "People aren't coming here for stories about your kids. They want to hear about the upcoming books, writing advice, conventions..."

  Patrick Rothfuss

  Book, Writing, Kids

  "Of Beards and Books: An Interview with Patrick Rothfuss". Interview with Nikki Steele, bookriot.com. November 17, 2015.

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• 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.

  Chuck Wendig

  Crazy, Book, Character

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• Complicated Grief was written in larger and more coherent (if disparate) shapes. The question was how they fit together. The mind is coherent, trust that was the best writing advice I ever got (I got it from Carole Maso and I pass it on). It's true, and clearer and clearer as one grows and gains an improved sense of who one actually is (as versus who one was supposed to be).

  Laura Mullen

  Grief, Writing, Advice

  Source: therumpus.net

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• Whenever I teach writing I tell them to never revise as you go. Finish the first draft. This is my writing advice. I can't do that myself. I'm lying to everybody. I write a paragraph, and then I rewrite that paragraph. I want to feel like I'm standing on firm ground before I move on to the next paragraph. Mentally, I have to do that.

  Matt de la Pena

  Lying, Moving, Writing

  Source: therumpus.net

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• Riffing on language will create wonderful effects you never intended. Which leads me to this writing advice: 'Always take credit for good stuff you didn't intend, because you'll be getting plenty of criticism in your career for bad stuff you didn't mean either.'

  Roy Peter Clark

  Mean, Writing, Careers

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• To Grandma, for being my first editor and giving me the best writing advice I’ve ever received: “Christopher, I think you should wait until you’re done with elementary school before worrying about being a failed writer.

  Chris Colfer

  Grandma, Writing, School

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• I like rules. I like definitions, categories, and writing advice of all sorts. When I'm writing fiction, there are often a lot of things for me to try to get right at once, and rules help me to stay organized. But my favorite rule of all is that, ultimately, there are no rules.

  Bruce Holland Rogers

  Writing, Advice, Trying

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• Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious. When you're conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth, you have the ability to throw the lights on for your reader. He or she will recognize his or her life and truth in what you say, in the pictures you have painted, and this decreases the terrible sense of isolation that we have all had too much of.

  Anne Lamott

  Real, Writing, Caring

  Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.225, Anchor

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• Don't take anyone's writing advice too seriously.

  Lev Grossman

  Writing, Advice

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• Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he'd had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books about birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.

  Anne Lamott

  Brother, Father, Book

  Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, Anchor

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