romance

“A major writer combines these three – storyteller, teacher, enchanter – but it is the enchanter in him that predominates and makes him a major writer.” ~ Vladimir Nabokov

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We writers, as we work our way deeper into our craft, learn to drop more and more personal clues. Like burglars who secretly wish to be caught, we leave our fingerprints on broken locks, our voiceprints in bugged rooms, our footprints in the wet concrete. ~ Ross Macdonald

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“We writers, as we work our way deeper into our craft, learn to drop more and more personal clues. Like burglars who secretly wish to be caught, we leave our fingerprints on broken locks, our voiceprints in bugged rooms, our footprints in the wet concrete.” ~ Ross Macdonald

“You have to wait for your mind to catch up with whatever it is it’s working on; then you can write a novel.” ~ James M. Cain

“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

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Conflict & Crises Make the Story Interesting

Conflict and crisis are important to fiction because most readers find trouble interesting. If characters are best friends who always get along or have no age and personality difference, readers might not find them compelling. If characters do not have internal or external conflict to meet, deal with, and overcome (or fail to overcome), then readers may find the story uninteresting.

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Character can’t be separated from action, since we come to understand a character by what she does. In stories, characters drive the plot. The plot depends on the characters’ situations and how they respond to it. The actions that occur in the plot are only believable if the character is believable. 

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“Plot is what happens in a story, but action itself doesn’t constitute plot. Plot is created by the manner in which the writer arranges and organizes particular actions in a meaningful way. It’s useful to think of plot as a chain reaction, where a sequence of events causes other events to happen.”

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“If you wait for inspiration, you’re not a writer, but a waiter.” ~ Louis L’Armour

“If you’re going to be a writer, the first essential is just to write. Do not wait for an idea. Start writing something and the ideas will come. You have to turn the faucet on before the water starts to flow.”

~ Louis L’Amour