poems

Those 4 guys in the late 60’s who attacked a jewel merchant on New York’s West 46th St. on the sidewalk, so they could steal his jewel-filled station wagon, which they abandoned 2 blocks later because none of them could drive a stick shift. Where would I be without such people? ~ Donald Westlake

My books are primarily plot driven but the best plot in the world is useless if you don’t populate them with characters that readers can care about. ~ Jeffrey Deaver

The less attention I pay to what people want and the more attention I pay to just writing the book I want to write, the better I do. ~ Lawrence Block

Depending on what I’m working on, I come to the writing desk with entirely different mindsets. When I change form one to the other, it’s as if another writer is on the scene. ~ Ed McBain

“My first rule was given to me by TH White, author of The Sword in the Stone and other Arthurian fantasies and was: Read. Read everything you can lay hands on. I always advise people who want to write a fantasy or science fiction or romance to stop reading everything in those genres and start reading everything else from Bunyan to Byatt.” — Michael Moorcock

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One day a long time from now you’ll cease to care anymore whom you please or what anybody has to say about you. That’s when you’ll finally produce the work you’re capable of. ~ J. D. Salinger

Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity.

~ William Zinsser

As Kandinsky says, “Everything starts with a dot.” Sometimes the hardest thing in writing a story is where to start. You don’t need to have a great idea, you just have to put pen to paper. Start with a bad idea, start with the wrong direction, start with a character you don’t like, something positive will come out of it. – Marion Deuchars

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Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but that’s the only way you can do anything really good. ~ William Faulkner

What Does Dialogue Reveal?

1. Spoken dialogue shows the person your character wants others to see.
2. Inner dialogue shows the true person, how the character really feels.

Use this knowledge to your advantage. You can have a hero who sweet talks a heroine, but his inner dialogue reveals his nose should be stretched to the length of a ruler. Inner dialogue gives the reader an edge—an inside look at a character’s true self causes the reader to know she is getting a heads-up from a reliable source. By combining both, and focusing on creating actions and reactions, you can make a scene spark.

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