Armitage, Richard: "Sometimes you know your villain is doing really terrible deeds but you want him to succeed because he's doing it with such finesse. You want to see him get his comeuppance but you also want to see him pull it off. It's a real paradox."
Armitage, Richard: "When you give a character such a dark center a damaged inner life; when you give them potential for redemption, I think everybody is sort of attracted to them. They feel that there's a journey to go on. I think we feel a need to see them through that journey."
Blacker, Terence: "Read. Try to write every day. Don't be afraid to imitate writers you like. Try different styles. Develop a thick skin. Get an understanding bank manager. Have faith in yourself. Listen to the experts, then do it your own way."
Bradbury, Ray: "Remember: Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations."
Bradbury, Ray: "Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way."
Bradbury, Ray: "You fail only if you stop writing."
Bohjalian, Chris: "Lie. Put down on paper the most interesting lies you can imagine... and then make them plausible."
Card, Orson Scott: "You know how writers are... they create themselves as they create their work. Or perhaps they create their work in order to create themselves."
Card, Orson Scott: "Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any."
Caroll, Lewis: "When you are describing, a shape, or sound, or tint; don't state the matter plainly, but put it in a hint; and learn to look at all things, with a sort of mental squint."
Chekhov, Anton: "Don't tell me the moon is shining. Show me the glint of light on broken glass."
Cormier, Robert: "The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon."
Dashner, James: " Make sure your book is the best it can be. None of this 'my mama liked the first draft' nonsense. Rewrite and revise until it's very good. Make it the best it can be. And don't have any typos. Please, in the name of all that is good and green on this Earth, do not have typos. ESPECIALLY in your query letter!"
de la Cruz, Melissa: "Before you begin to write your story or novel, write a detailed outline and character backgrounds first. So many unpublished first (or second or third or 44th) novels begin halfway through the book because the writer has spent the first 150 pages giving us the background story instead of starting with THE STORY."
Dillard, Annie: "Adverbs are a sign that you've used the wrong verb."
Dubus III, Andre: "When you finish a draft of a poem, or short story or novel, you make sure you go out and celebrate all night long because whether the world ever notices or not, whether you get published or not, you did something most people never do: You started, stuck with, and finished a creative work. And that is a triumph."
Faulkner, William: "Don't be a writer. Be writing."
Fitch, Janet: "When in doubt, make trouble for your character. Don't let her stand on the edge of the pool, dipping her toe. Come up behind her and give her a good hard shove. That's my advice to you now. Make trouble for your character. In life we try to avoid trouble. We chew on our choices endlessly. We go to shrinks, we talk to our friends. In fiction, this is deadly. Protagonists need to screw up, act impulsively, have enemies, get into TROUBLE."
Fitzgerald, F. Scott: "Writers aren't exactly people... they're a whole bunch of people trying to be one person."
Frost, Robert: "No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader."
Gerth, Holley: "Be courageous and try to write in a way that scares you a little."
Gilbert, Elizabeth: "Writing is not like dancing or modelling; it's not something where--if you missed it by age 19-- you're finished. It's never too late. Your writing will only get better as you get older and wiser. If you write something beautiful and important, and the right person somehow discovers it, they will clear room for you on the bookshelves of the world--at any age. At least try."
Giovanni, Nikki: "Writers don't write from experience, although many are hesitant to admit that they don't... If you wrote from experience, you'd get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy."
Goldberg, Bonni: "Endings are the hardest parts to write. This is because they are false. Nothing truly ends; it transforms. Still, the novel must have a last page, the poem a final line. So it is helpful to remember that you are really construction a passageway, a birth canal, a place where the writer lets go and the work becomes part of the reader's consciousness, understanding, and imagination."
Goldberg, Natalie: "Writers end up writing about their obsessions. Things that haunt them; things they can't forget; stories they carry in their bodies waiting to be released."
Hale, Shannon: "I'm writing a first draft and reminding myself that I'm simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles."Hart, N. R.: "As a writer you try to listen to what others aren't saying... and write about the silence."
Heller, Joseph: "Every Writer I know has trouble writing."
Hemingway, Ernest: "Write hard and clear about what hurts."
Hulstrand, Janet: "Bad writing precedes good writing. This is an infallible rule, so don't waste time trying to avoid bad writing. (That just slows down the process). Anything committed to paper can be changed. The idea is to start, and then go from there."
James, Peter: "Structure is important. Know your ending before you start writing. You wouldn't just get into a car and drive without knowing where you're going. Know your most important plot points. This does not mean that things won't change, but you will never get stuck."
Jensen, Sandra: "If you start to edit as you write, you are climbing into your 'editor' self, the self that reads. You've done plenty of reading, you don't need practice right now. Just write."
Kawasaki, Guy: "Do not write to impress others. Authors who write to impress people have difficulty remaining true to themselves."
Keyes, Ralph: "Serious writers write, inspired or not. Over time they discover that routine is a better friend than inspiration."
Kidd, Sue Monk: "Ask: What does my character want? For me that is the single most important question to ask when writing a novel. I need my main character to want something very badly, and I need to understand completely and utterly what it is. That's because this thing, or tangle of things, will become the driving force of the book."
King, Stephen: "Writers must be fair and remember even bad guys (most of them, anyway) see themselves as good--they are the heroes of their own lives. Giving them a fair chance as characters can create some interesting shades of grey--and shades of grey are also a part of life."
King, Stephen: "My rule of thumb is that a short story of 3,000 words should be rewritten down to 2,500. It's not always true, but mostly it is. You need to take out the stuff that's just sitting there and doing nothing. Always ask the student writer, 'What do you want to say?' Every sentence that answers that question is part of the essay or story. Every sentence that does not needs to go."
Krantz, Judith: "Thousands of people plan to be writers, but they never get around to it. The only way to find out if you can write is to set aside a certain period every day and try."
Keyes, Ralph: "Serious writers write, inspired or not. Over time they discover that routine is a better friend than inspiration."
L'Engle, Madeleine: "First, if you want to write, you need to keep an honest, unpublishable journal that nobody reads, nobody but you. Where you just put down what you think life, what you think about things, what you think is fair and what you think is unfair. And second, you need to read. You can't be a writer if you're not a reader. It's the great writers who teach us how to write. The third thing is to write. Just write a little bit every day. Even if it's for only half an hour - write, write, write."
Lewis, C. S.: "Don't use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was 'terrible,' describe it so that we'll be terrified. 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?'"
Lewis, C. S. "Write about what really interests you, whether it is real things or imaginary things, and nothing else."
London, Jack: "Keep a notebook. Travel with it, eat with it, sleep with it. Slap into it every stray thought that flutters up into your brain. Cheap paper is less perishable than gray matter, and lead markings endure longer than memory."
Martel, Yann: "Just do it. Get it down on the page. Work hard. And then let go. Ask yourself why you want to write. You have to be clear about that."
Morrell, Jessica Page: "Before you sit down to write a novel, here are essentials you'll need. 1. A knowable protagonist who will fascinate readers. 2. A problem that needs solving or a goal that needs reaching. 3. An understanding of your protagonist's inner and outer desires. 4. An interesting, workable locale. 5. A menace/threat hanging over the protagonist. 6. An antagonist 7. How it will all turn out."
Oates, Joyce Carol: "Novels begin, not on the page, but in meditation and day-dreaming -- in thinking, not writing."
Orwell, George: "A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words express it? 3. What images or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect And he will probably ask himself two more: 1. Could I put it more shortly? 2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?"
Palahniuk, Chuck: "One of the most-common mistakes that beginning writers make is leaving their characters alone. Writing, you may be alone. Reading, your audience may be alone. But your character should spend very, very little time alone. Because a solitary character starts thinking or worrying or wondering."
Poelle, Barbara: "If you're struggling with writing a character, write 20 things that the reader will never know about your character. These will naturally bleed into your writing and provide a richness even though you don't share the detail."
Pratchett, Terry: "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."
Proulx, Annie: "You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write."
Revis, Beth: "My inspiration tends to come from two words. The two most important words to a writer: 'What if?'"
Richell, Hannah: "Read a lot. Write a lot. Delete a lot."
Dr. Seuss: "The writer who breeds more words than he needs is making a chore for the reader who reads."
Steinbeck, John: "Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down."
Stern, Jerome: "Dialoge is not just quotation. It is grimaces, pauses, adjustments of blouse buttons, doodles on a napkin, and crossings of legs."
Thoreau, Henry David: "Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with."
Thurber, James: "Don't get it right, just get it written."
Whedon, Joss: "I write to give myself strength. I write to be the characters that I am not. I write to explore all the things I'm afraid of."
Williams, Robin: "You must strive to find your own voice because the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all."
Wilson, August: "The simpler you say it, the more eloquent it is."
Zinsser, William: "Don't say you were a bit confused and sort of tired and a little depressed and somewhat annoyed. Be tired. Be confused. Be depressed. Be annoyed. Don't hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident."
Make body language unique to the character. Do they lift themselves up in their shoes as they stand and wait? Do they run a finger along the seam line of their jeans when deep in thought? Creative emotional mannerisms help characters leap off the page.
Consider having at least one character who goes by his or her middle name instead of his or her given name. I mean, come on, we all have that one friend, don't we? Having a character who does this provides opportunities for you to give some interesting back story.
Setting is not just about location. It is also about historical period and the society, ethos and culture that pertain to that time. They are how we understand the way characters think and behave, and the factors that drive them.
Fiction dialogue has to appear realistic, but, paradoxically, if the reader is to believe in it, cannot be genuinely life-like. Readers don't want to see in print the ums and ers, pauses, digressions and waffling that everday chat consists of. As a fiction writer, you need to give readers the essence of what your characters are communicating with the flavour of verisimilitude. So how do you do that?
You're a storyteller. Writing tends to stop being fun when you stop focusing on telling the story and you worry about selling it. Publishing is important, no question, but finish the story first!
If you want to paint a picture with your words, try using all, or most of your sense. What do you hear? What do you smell? What does it feel like?