80 Quotes About Fiction Writing

Reading stories is fun. The good ones are much better than the bad ones, but they have to have some kind of plot or theme. The main point of a story is to tell a story, and this is accomplished through characters, conflict, and resolution. A great story should be well written, engaging, and leave you with something to think about at the end Read more

Read these great fiction writing quotes for inspiration on how to make your stories even better.

You take people, you put them on a journey, you...
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You take people, you put them on a journey, you give them peril, you find out who they really are. Joss Whedon
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Jika kita menyukai sesuatu, bagaimanapun keadaannya, kita hanya akan tetap menyukainya. Rasa suka itu tidak akan terpengaruh oleh faktor lain. Suka, ya, suka, dan akan begitu walau dilihat dari sudut pandang mana saja. Jee
Ah, ya, omong-omong, aku sangat merindukanmu. Apa kau merindukanku juga,...
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Ah, ya, omong-omong, aku sangat merindukanmu. Apa kau merindukanku juga, mmm? Jee
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Entah mengapa, mendadak dia merasa bahwa berkenalan dengan si pemilik nama itu sepertinya akan menyenangkan. Jee
You can not describe anything without betraying your point of...
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You can not describe anything without betraying your point of view, your aspirations, your fears, your hopes. Everything. James Baldwin
The trouble with writing fiction is that it has to...
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The trouble with writing fiction is that it has to make sense, whereas real life doesn't. Iain M. Banks
If you haven't cried at least once while writing a...
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If you haven't cried at least once while writing a chapter of your inspirational book, then you have to ask yourself if your're writing fiction. Shannon L. Alder
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Fueled by my inspiration, I ran across the room to steal the cup of coffee the bookshelf had taken prisoner. Lapping the black watery brew like a hyena, I tossed the empty cup aside. I then returned to the chair to continue my divine act of creation. Hot blood swished in my head as my mighty pen stole across the page. Roman Payne
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We share a bond. We do everything together. We have a piece of strong, invisible thread connecting us. It’s indestructible — it can never be broken. The thread is the key item that links us together. We understand each other. Erica Sehyun Song
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Fantasy or fiction is just a persons secret life. A world they want to be in. The only diffrence between them and you, is that they wrote it down in detail, printed it and shared it with the world. Mariana Hak
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Without thinking, I step a little closer, reaching out slowly to slide a fingertip over the largest petal of the lily tattoo on her lower back. Instantly a vibration moves up my arm, and I swear the mark on my hand burns against my skin. I clench my fingers into a fist, but I don’t step away.“ Did you feel that?” she asks. I shake my head. “I don’t know.” I feel so much, always so much. She takes my hand and brings it to her side again, resting it on the violets. I look at thepurple flowers between my fingers and feel the heat of her skin, the way it slides beneath my palm, soft as silk. And that vibration moves through my arm again. Her breath quickens. I find myself moving closer as her blue eyes go wide with wonder. My heart stutters and my chest aches with some unknown need.“ Are you doing this?” I ask. Is she making me want this?“ No, ” she breathes. The smell of her turns to spice, sharp and warm, and I know I’m sensing her now, even through the block in the house. We stand like that for an eternity, still as statues on the outside, but inside I’m running, running toward a place I’ve never been. I should be terrified. But all I feel is strength. Rightness.And then Kara moves, her hands skimming up my chest, testing the boundaries. Her palms slide to my shoulders, her fingers tracing the line of the muscles in my arms, down to my waist. She grips my shirt, stretching it a little, waiting for me to tell her to stop. But I watch her lift it, let her pull it up, raising my arms, and I even take the last of it off myself, dropping it to the floor. We breathe, staring at each other. The vibrations move between us. My left arm buzzes with them. I think she’s doing it. Whatever’s happening, it’s her. I reach up and brush my marked knuckles across her cheek, amazed at the feel of her, the way her eyes seem to see everything, the way she pulls me into her. I can’t seem to remember why I shouldn’t kiss her. And kiss her. And. I kiss her, taking her face in both hands, skimming my thumb over her jaw as she leans into the touch, reaching out to curl her fingers around the back of my neck. I have to remind myself to breathe. I need more of her. The emotions roll over me in a rush, a tangle of sensation and movement, heat and sugar and heady aromas. I grip her tighter. Her nails dig into my shoulders. My hands slide down her spine. The kiss deepens, goes on forever, until I can barely see sense. I explore her shape, the feel of her ribs, the textures and taste of her skin on my tongue as I kiss her neck, her shoulders, her chest. As I draw trembling gasps from her lips, she grips me so hard it hurts. Our bodies mesh. Our breath mingles in frenzied desperation. Nothing else exists except her. Her warmth. Her spice. Her. Rachel A. Marks
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Expand your world. (Stories about wizards and spells) are very frequently about power relationships... Margaret Atwood
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I’ve never pondered my own life until I started watching fictional ones fight for theirs. Jennifer Renson
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A smart person is not one that knows the answers, but one who knows where to find them... William Petersen
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Writing fiction feels like an adventurous act, nudging aside reality a word at a time. James Van Pelt
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Perhaps the critics are right: this generation may not produce literature equal to that of any past generation--who cares? The writer will be dead before anyone can judge him--but he must go on writing, reflecting disorder, defeat, despair, should that be all he sees at the moment, but ever searching for the elusive love, joy, and hope--qualities which, as in the act of life itself, are best when they have to be struggled for, and are not commonly come by with much ease, either by a critic's formula or by a critic's yearning. Bill Styron
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The fiction writer is an observer, first, last, and always, but he cannot be an adequate observer unless he is free from uncertainty about what he sees. Those who have no absolute values cannot let the relative remain merely relative; they are always raising it to the level of the absolute. The Catholic fiction writer is entirely free to observe. He feels no call to take on the duties of God or to create a new universe. He feels perfectly free to look at the one we already have and to show exactly what he sees. Flannery OConnor
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You may ask, why not simply call this literature Christian? Unfortunately, the word Christian is no longer reliable. It has come to mean anyone with a golden heart. And a golden heart would be a positive interference in the writing of fiction. Flannery OConnor
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It is generally supposed, and not least by Catholics, that the Catholic who writes fiction is out to use fiction to prove the truth of the Faith, or at the least, to prove the existence of the supernatural. He may be. No one certainly can be sure of his low motives except as they suggest themselves in his finished work, but when the finished work suggests that pertinent actions have been fraudulently manipulated or overlooked or smothered, whatever purposes the writer started out with have already been defeated. What the fiction writer will discover, if he discovers anything at all, is that he himself cannot move or mold reality in the interests of an abstract truth. The writer learns, perhaps more quickly than the reader, to be humble in the face of what-is. What-is is all he has to do with; the concrete is his medium; and he will realize eventually that fiction can transcend its limitations only by staying within them. Flannery OConnor
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The type of mind that can understand good fiction is not necessarily the educated mind, but it is at all times the kind of mind that is willing to have its sense of mystery deepened by contact with reality, and its sense of reality depend by contact with mystery. Fiction should be both canny and uncanny. In a good deal of popular criticism, there is the notion operating that all fiction has to be about the Average Man, and has to depict average ordinary everyday life, that every fiction writer must produce what used to be called "a slice of life." But if life, in that sense, satisfied us, there would be no sense in producing literature at all. Flannery OConnor
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I'll call any length of fiction a story, whether it be a novel or a shorter piece, and I'll call anything a story in which specific characters and events influence each other to form a meaningful narrative. I find that most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one. Then they find themselves writing a sketch with an essay woven through it, or an essay with a sketch woven through it, or an editorial with a character in it, or a case history with a moral, or some other mongrel thing. When they realize that they aren't writing stories, they decide that the remedy for this is to learn something that they refer to as "the technique of the short story" or "the technique of the novel." Technique in the minds of many is something rigid, something like a formula that you impose on the material; but in the best stories it is something organic, something that grows out of the material, and this being the case, it is different for every story of any account that has ever been written. . Flannery OConnor
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You know this has really affected my ability to trust myself. No matter what happened in my life, I was always able to trust myself. My instincts. Two men in a row carrying on indiscretions makes me feel like I made up some story. Almost like a fiction, Iwrote in my mind that had a beginning, middle and end. It feels like I manufactured some ideal life that was a made-up invention that I needed to believe was the truth. Jacqueline Simon Gunn
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In almost all other professions a man must be able to observe carefully and report accurately what he has seen. Those qualifications are unnecessary for journalists, however, since their job is to write sensational stories that sell newspapers. Robert Anton Wilson
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Sometimes a night of over-eating leaves you hungry for something you can't name. An emptiness haunted me. An emptiness I didn't have a name for until I met Jeb. Now, I' m starving. Kim Briggs
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Fiction writers, magicians, politicians and priests are the only people rewarded for entertaining us with their lies Bangambiki Habyarimana
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That's what we storytellers do. We restore order with imagination. We instill hope again and again and again. Unknown
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Misunderstandings arise only in undefined relationships Anuradha Bhattacharyya
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There’s so much to learn. So much to enjoy. So terribly much to be curious about. Take your life and run with it. Make a habit of being alive. This much of anything, I have learned. And am still learning. Carew Papritz
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Family is a permanent adhesive that creates a lifetime bond. Conrad Brooks
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Writing is a solitary business. It’s just you and your characters and a blank page you need to fill. Shannon Celebi
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I long for some connection, to the real and those who love them, and hope that my fiction can reach beyond the veil, that I might touch someone and make them feel something…or something. Shannon Celebi
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I knew that it was impossible for us to be kept apart for too long. Erica Sehyun Song
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Our pendants glowed in unison and I understood that they represented us — Siren and human intertwined for eternity. Erica Sehyun Song
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I watched her shadow merge with the darker colours of the deep sea. Erica Sehyun Song
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She smiled sinisterly. Light mist started to slowly swirl around us. All I could see was her, the tall rocks and the white wall. She beckoned to me. I took a step and another. I was now ankle deep into the water. The mysterious girl smiled like a predator. Erica Sehyun Song
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I was slightly thankful when Mom finally came out and unlocked the car. It was warm and toasty inside and it smelt like home. There was not the slightest smell of something that didn’t belong home. Erica Sehyun Song
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The other one was filled with loud and obnoxious tourists. Always boasting on winning a sand castle competition and seeing who could get tanned first. What a whacky bunch of people. Erica Sehyun Song
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Have you lost your mind? What have I told you Charlie about whales? You can’t MANHANDLE THEM! Erica Sehyun Song
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Although nobody could ever know about our friendship, that wasn’t going to stop us from being together. Erica Sehyun Song
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She snorted in amusement at my remark. “When are the guards going to start to notice?” Keith peered into the distance. “Starting now, Erica Sehyun Song
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He sent it flying at full speed. It jumped six times as well, sending ripples across the sea. The small splashes of foam turned into miniature rainbows as they caught the light of the evening sun setting behind the clouds. Erica Sehyun Song
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I distracted Herbert by pretending to trip and break a bone. Ethan darted around to the red golf cart with a cocky smile on his face. He put the key in ignition, and the vehicle roared to life. “Hey, ” Herbert shouted, snapping his attention to Ethan. I sprang up and ran up to Ethan. He pulled me in the cart and stomped on the gas pedal. We shot through the automatic doors with Herbert on our tail. “Go faster! ” I cheered. My brother smacked the steering wheel. “I can’t; it’s a golf cart. . Erica Sehyun Song
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I closed my eyes and dived into foreign water. Erica Sehyun Song
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I told you; I am Arianna, the Siren, your Guardian, and how is a Guardian supposed to do her job if she is clueless about the Guardianee? Erica Sehyun Song
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I could have drowned…and my brother didn’t even care. Erica Sehyun Song
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I could have drowned today. If they hadn’t been screaming my name so loudly and if I hadn’t woken up, I would have drowned. Erica Sehyun Song
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A long time ago, there was a little girl called Mary. Now Mary, she was warned several times not to go to her neighbor’s house. Her neighbor was a grandmother. But Mary hardly listened, so she snuck off one night to spy on her. She tried the front door first, and it creaked open. Then suddenly, she heard a squeaking noise upstairs. She followed it — climbed up the wooden stairs where half of it was already rotten. She heard the squeaking noise again. It was coming from the library. She opened the door and hid behind a couch. She peered out, and she saw the grandmother.” Dave paused to drain his cup of coffee before continuing. My heart thudded so loudly, I thought that everyone could hear it. “So Mary gasped in disbelief as she heard the squeaking noise again, and the grandmother’s rocking chair was not moving at all. Then the grandmother opened her eyes and looked directly at her, holding her gaze steadily and sharply, and then suddenly, BOO! . Erica Sehyun Song
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The last image I registered was Ethan and my hand — linked, bound and unbreakable. Erica Sehyun Song
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She opened her eyes and looked into his rather intensely. "What?" Alex asked. "This cannot be." "What can't be?" Alex asked her, more bafflement in his voice this time. "I have been reading people all my life. I can even read cats and dogs. I've been doing it all my life and i've been here longer than the two of you put together." "And?" Alex wanted to get to the point. Whatever the truth may be, he just wanted to hear it, wanted it on the table before them so he could get this over with and they can go home. "AND...you are the first person that has nothing for me to see." "And here I was hoping you'd say I'd win the lottery or get married to a supermodel or something." Alex said, starting to laugh. "You don't understand. I don't see anything, anything at all. There is nothing to you, nothing but what I see before me." "So..what does that mean?" "It means you don't exist. J.C. Joranco
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For his lunch break, Alex decided to sit outside for a smoke. There was no break room to speak of, just a backdoor that led to a neglected parking lot and an old payphone. There was an upturned crate by the door used to hold the door open or to sit on if one so desired. But Alex couldn't sit down, even though he had been standing for the past four hours, his anxious mind kept his feet moving. He paced back and forth, smoking his cigarette with the speed of an anxious drug addict. The cool but faint breeze pushed the smoke away from him and dissipated it into nothing. He still felt angry about the run-in with Gonzalez. It had consistently poked at him like a curious sadist with a pointed stick ever since he walked away from the door slammed in his face. J.C. Joranco
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Danilo's was the kind of place where many drinking men come to hide, be it from their wives, in-laws, their jobs or life in general. it was where men and women can come to drink poison as if it was the only form of medicine available to remedy the migraine headache called life. The lighting dim and secluded, mostly covering the tables, counters and the door to the bathroom. The walls were decorated in decades of memories, favorite sports teams and other miscellaneous decor that was typical of small bars such as this one. It was too dark to tell what they were from a distance. There was a thick layer of smoke hovering in the air around the ceiling lights, the place was smothered in it but was strongest above everyone's heads. The smell was the classic stale bar odor of cigarettes and cheap cigars. . J.C. Joranco
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Movie. What's my favorite kind of movie?”“ Is there a point to this?”“ Please, Lucy. What's my favorite movie?”“ Horror. Why?”“No reason, ” I sighed as I slouched back in the chair.“ And would you stop that! Please? It's distracting, ” she said as sheslammed her hand down on top of mine to stop me from twirling my ring. I jerked my hand out from under hers so I could cross my arms over mychest.“ What's with you today?” Her tone was saturated with distaste.“ Nothing.”“ Well, you're being awfully annoying for nothing to be wrong, ” sheretorted. “Go ahead, Josh. I'm listening now.” I could feel the cold emanating from her and flowing in my direction. Ithad been this way for a while I just didn't want to see it. Danny and Josh looked at me and then awkwardly focused on otherthings. Kaitlin Scott
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Well, I would tell Danny. I'd probably edit for Josh. That is if there wasanything worth editing.“ Joshua Roberts, you had better get your butt on the move! ” Dannyhollered as he walked down the stairs. I was nervously waiting for them to leave as I pretended to watch TV inthe front room.“ We're going to be late.”“ So the hair crisis is under control I see.”“ A stray hair will never win between a bottle of gel and a gay man, ” hedeclared with a smile. “Joshua! ”“I'm coming. I'm coming.” I heard his sandals click on the stairs and I waited to see if the mentalimage matched the real one. To my non surprise it did. . Kaitlin Scott
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Grayson: Fiction is just a lie anyway. Brianna: But it's not - it's a different kind of truth - it would be your truth at the time of the writing, wouldn't it? Nora Roberts
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I love my career. It is a career. A difficult one that takes many hours and total dedication to my craft. It is also what I was born to do--tell stories and entertain. Michelle M. Pillow
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Editing fiction is like using your fingers to untangle the hair of someone you love. Unknown
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That was enough dialogue for a few pages - he had to get into some fast, red-hot action. There weren't any more hitches now. The story flowed like a torrent. The margin bell chimed almost staccato, the roller turned with almost piston-like continuity, the pages sprang up almost like blobs of batter from a pancake skillet. The beer kept rising in the glass and, contradictorily, steadily falling lower. The cigarettes gave up their ghosts, long thin gray ghosts, in a good cause; the mortality rate was terrible. His train of thought, the story's lifeline, beer-lubricated but no whit impeded, flashed and sputtered and coursed ahead like lightning in a topaz mist, and the loose fingers and hiccuping keys followed as fast as they could. ("The Penny-A-Worder") . Cornell Woolrich
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And yet it was also true that the tumor could not be removed by our doctor, and as a result of that a strange medication had been given him that enabled my brother to become even more of an enigma than he was before, and as a result of that there came to exist not only the machine and the inertia that came with it, but a change of perspective among the townsfolk that was a result of their interactions with the various phases of my brother. And so it was that when the flood began to rear its terrible head, not only was there the inertia that we all had to deal with, but a sense of the sublime that we had begun to feel for the waters which had roared upon the horizon. Justin Dobbs
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Inside the room there sat a rocker, which she sat on, and which had rocked her while she sipped the beer, because in spite of herself she had become so giddy to have so quickly relieved her heart that she allowed herself to lean backwards while in the rocker, which had made it possible for the rocker to rock her, although it was not her intention to be so rocked. Also there stood an ironing board with a still hot iron on it that was burning a yellow shift, and there was, among several items that were not as noticeable to the woman, and yet were noticeable enough to at least bear mention, a fake man." I hope you don't mind me asking, " said the woman who lived in the room, but then while in her chair she nodded off. Justin Dobbs
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The writer who position is Christian, and probably also the writer whose position is not, will begin to wonder at this point if there could not be some ugly correlation between our unparalleled prosperity and the stridency of these demands for a literature that shows us the joy of life. He may at least be permitted to ask if these screams for joy would be quite so piercing if joy were really more abundant in our prosperous society. Flannery OConnor
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I long for the day I no longer long for him. Franki Fiori
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In writing, there is art. And in art there is craft ... Susi Moore
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To my fellow writers' I say, 'Write. Build an imaginary world like nobody's watching. Terry A. ONeal
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You cannot be a good writer of serious fiction if you are not depressed. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
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Write it down and it will come alive. Efrat Israeli
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? Reviews are for readers AND authors. It’s a good way of learning from what people think about the work. Being it good or bad. A book might as well be hurt by a bad, poorly written review. That’s such a pity. Some people don’t know how to express themselves, and maybe that’s why they are just readers and not writers, others read a book like chewing a cupcake. That’s too bad. If that was not your cup of tea, leave it there, untouched. Don’t go bash the author for that. But if you really hate the book, why bother telling others. It’s your problem after all. You can give constructive opinions but don’t blame the author for your different tastes and views. Also authors shouldn’t comment on reviews, it sounds unprofessional, even silly. Some busy writers don’t even have time to read what other people say about their work. If someone enjoyed your book, or not, that is irrelevant. If you will continue or not to write something else it doesn´t add to the plate. Besides, why bother commenting on a review, just read it and shut up. Being it good or bad. So my opinions about authors commenting on reviews is just my opinions after all!. Ana Claudia Antunes
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The viewpoint character in each story is usually someone trapped in a living nightmare, but this doesn't guarantee that we and the protagonist are at one. In fact Woolrich often makes us pull away from the person at the center of the storm, splitting our reaction in two, stripping his protagonist of moral authority, denying us the luxury of unequivocal identification, drawing characters so psychologically warped and sometimes so despicable that a part of us wants to see them suffer. Woolrich also denies us the luxury of total disidentification with all sorts of sociopaths, especially those who wear badges. His Noir Cop tales are crammed with acts of police sadism, casually committed or at least endorsed by the detective protagonist. These monstrosities are explicitly condemned almost never and the moral outrage we feel has no internal support in the stories except the objective horror of what is shown, so that one might almost believe that a part of Woolrich wants us to enjoy the spectacles. If so, it's yet another instance of how his most powerful novels and stories are divided against themselves so as to evoke in us a divided response that mirrors his own self-division.(" Introduction") . Unknown
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Perhaps this is what Henry James meant when he talked about the “irresponsibility” of characters. Characters are irresponsible, art is irresponsible when compared to life, because it is first and foremost important that a character be real, and as readers or watchers we tend to applaud any effort made towards the construction of that reality. We do not, of course, indulge actual people in the world this way at all. In real life, the fact that something seems real to someone is not enough to interest us, or to convince us that that reality is interesting. But the self-reality of fictional characters is deeply engrossing, which is why villains are lovable in literature in ways that they are not in life. Unknown
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Nobody wants to be a part of your story. Everybody wants you to elaborate on their fantasies. Michael Bassey Johnson
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Now the second common characteristic of fiction follows from this, and it is that fiction is presented in such a way that the reader has the sense that it is unfolding around him. This doesn't mean he has to identify himself with the character or feel compassion for the character or anything like that. It just means that fiction has to be largely presented rather than reported. Another way to say it is that though fiction is a narrative art, it relies heavily on the element of drama. . Flannery OConnor
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Commercial fiction writing — where my bread is buttered — is fairly straightforward. The writing is simply efficiency and story. The more you have of one the less you need of the other. Joe Ducie
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I don’t mind working, holding my ground intellectually, artistically; but as a woman, oh, God, as a woman I want to be dominated. I don’t mind being told to stand on my own feet, not to cling, be all that I am capable of doing, but I am going to be pursued, fucked, possessed by the will of a male at his time, his bidding.” …Anias Nin Angelic Artiaga
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Without a doubt the two best words in the English language are The End Ken Scott
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Every book contains a secret — even the writer doesn't always know what it is. Carla H. Krueger
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Reading is fuel for the brain. Writing is fuel for the spirit... Megan S. Johnston
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The table was covered with food like roast chicken, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, roast turkey, roast liquorice and, the centrepiece, a roasted knight. Elias Zapple
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I imagined a time when being gay is as unquestioned and un-judged as is having blue eyes. Some might call it fantasy or science fiction. I’d like to think it’s the future. Missouri Vaun
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I keep being told that my writing is getting better and better. - Now, at first I am thrilled by that, but then I think, Isn't everybody's? Do some authors grow cozy with their own style, and stay there? I think of writing fiction as an art form. As such, it's a constant exploration of new and developing ideas. If any of my books were much like my others, I don't think I'd even bother to write them. . Edward Fahey
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This whole show vs tell concept both bewilders and challenges my mind. Davee Jones