“Being a fiction writer is really like being an actor, because if you’re going to write convincingly it has to sound right and play right. The only way that works is to emotionally and technically act out and see the scene you’re in.” ~ Ridley Pearson
mystery
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ Do Your Characters Audition?
“My characters have to talk, or they’re out. They audition in early scenes. If they can’t talk, they’re given less to do, or thrown out.” ~ Elmore Leonard
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ Writing from the Character’s Point of View
“I focus on characters as individuals with attitudes and write each scene from a particular character’s point of view. That way, even narrative passages take on the character’s sound. I don’t want the reader to be aware of me, writing.” ~ Elmore Leonard
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ All the Pieces to a Story
“There’s the story, then there’s the real story, then there’s the story of how the story came to be told. Then there’s what you leave out of the story. Which is part of the story too.”
~ Margaret Atwood
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ The Work of each Sentence
“Every sentence must do one of two things-reveal character or advance the action.”
~ Kurt Vonnegut
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ How a Character is Defined
“A character is defined by the kinds of challenges he cannot walk away from. And by those he has walked away from that cause him remorse.” ~ Arthur Miller
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ Are You a Dreamer
“The writer is by nature a dreamer – a conscious dreamer.” ~ Carson McCullers
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ The Importance of the Character’s Personality
“In most good stories, it is the character’s personality that creates the action of the story. If you start with real personality, a real character, then something is bound to happen.”
~ Flannery O’Connor
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ When do You Tell a Story?
“A story is a way to say something that can’t be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is. You tell a story because a statement would be inadequate. When anybody asks what a story is about, the only proper thing is to tell them to read the story. The meaning of fiction is not abstract meaning but experienced meaning.” ~ Flannery O’Connor
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ A Definition of a Good Poem
“A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it. A good poem helps to change the shape of the universe, helps to extend everyone’s knowledge of himself and the world around him.” ~ Dylan Thomas
