non fiction

“If your writing doesn`t keep you up at night, it won`t keep anyone else up either”.

“If you have a story that seems worth telling, and you think you can tell it worthily, then the thing for you to do is to tell it, regardless of whether it has to do with sex, sailors or mounted policemen.

“With most of my books, I’ll actually go out and look at the setting. If you describe things carefully, it kind of makes the scene pop.”

“Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.”

“Don’t ever write anything you don’t like yourself and if you do like it, don’t take anyone’s advice about changing it. They just don’t know.”

~ Raymond Chandler

“Cats gotta scratch. Dogs gotta bite. I gotta write.”

“Usually, when people get to the end of a chapter, they close the book and go to sleep. I deliberately write a book so when the reader gets to the end of the chapter, he or she must turn one more page.” 

~ Sidney Sheldon

“Pick a theme and work it to exhaustion… the subject must be something you truly love or truly hate.”

“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

“If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative.”

~ Elmore Leonard