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Character is the Very Life of Fiction

2012-02-10T05:14:30Z

Character is the very life of fiction. Setting exists so that the character has someplace to stand. Plot exists so the character can discover what he is really like, forcing the character to choice and action. And theme exists only to make the character stand up and be somebody.

JOHN GARDNER

Creativity is Paradoxical

2012-02-09T05:16:58Z

Creativity is paradoxical. To create, a person must have knowledge but forget the knowledge, must see unexpected connections in things but not have a mental disorder, must work hard but spend time doing nothing as information incubates, must create many ideas yet most of them are useless, must look at the same thing as everyone else, yet see something different, must desire success but embrace failure, must be persistent but not stubborn, and must listen to experts but know how to disregard them.

MICHAEL MICHALKO

You Can’t Wait Until You’re in the Mood

2012-02-08T05:02:14Z

You can’t wait to write until you’re in the mood. My God, if you waited until you were in the mood, it would take forever. You have to sit down. The name of the game is to put it in the chair.

HARRY CREWS

E.M. Forster on Plot

2012-02-07T05:20:09Z

"The king died and then the queen died" is a story. "The king died, and then the queen died of grief" is a plot...."The queen died, no one knew why, until it was discovered that it was through grief at the death of the king." This is a plot with a mystery in it, a form capable of high development.

E. M. FORSTER

Your Senses Must Be Razor-Sharp

2012-02-06T05:07:46Z

In order to write at a high level of competence you need a comprehensive vocabulary, a keen sense of overall structure, and an inner beat or cadence. Your senses must be razor-sharp. Alcohol blunts those senses even as it releases self-restraint. Therefore many writers feel they are getting down to the real story after a belt or two, little realizing they are damaging their ability to tell the real story.

RITA MAE BROWN

A Novel is an Act of Love

2012-02-05T05:05:00Z

A novel is a spot where language, movement, feeling, and thought jell for a moment, through the agency of, let's say, a particular volunteer, but it is not an object or a possession. It is an act of love.

JANE SMILEY

The Truth Is We Write for Love

2012-02-04T06:19:26Z

Despite all the cynical things writers have said about writing for money, the truth is we write for love. That is why it is so easy to exploit us. That is also why we pretend to be hard-boiled, saying things like “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money” (Samuel Johnson). Not true. No one but a blockhead ever wrote except for love. . . . You must do it for love. If you do it for money, no money will ever be enough, and eventually you will start imitating your first successes, straining hot water through the same old teabag. It doesn’t work with tea, and it doesn’t work with writing.

ERICA JONG

People Read Fiction for Emotion

2012-02-03T05:02:59Z

I was Sinclair Lewis's secretary-chess-opponent-chauffeur-protegé back when I was 24, and he told me sternly that if I could be anything else be it, but if I HAD to be a writer, I might make it. He also said, as he threw away the first 75 expository pages of my first novel: “People read fiction for emotion—not information.”

BARNABY CONRAD

Our Power is Patience

2012-02-02T05:07:43Z

Our power is patience. We have discovered that writing allows even a stupid person to seem halfway intelligent, if only that person will write the same thought over and over again, improving it just a little bit each time. It is a lot like inflating a blimp with a bicycle pump. Anybody can do it. All it takes is time.

KURT VONNEGUT

Any Fiction Should Be A Story

2012-02-01T05:23:16Z

Any fiction should be a story. In any story there are three elements: persons, a situation, and the fact that in the end something has changed. If nothing has changed, it isn’t a story.

MALCOLM COWLEY