writing

“I think a lot of young aspiring writers get misdirected; they think ‘I ought to write this, even though I enjoy reading that’. What you have to do is write what you enjoy reading.”

~ Jeffrey Deaver

“The way to write a thriller is to ask a question at the beginning, and answer it at the end.”

~ Lee Child

“It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.”

~ William Faulkner

“When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.”

~ Ernest Hemingway

“When I write I pretend I’m telling a story to someone in the room and I don’t want them to get up until I’m finished.” 

~ James Patterson

“In my books, women often solve the problem. Even if the woman is not the hero, she’s a strong character. She does change the plot. She’ll often rescue the male character from some situation.”

~ Ken Follett

I can’t write a scene unless I’ve visualized it. Unless I can actually see it, and that’s why a lot of reviewers have said my books are very cinematic, because I actually do see them before I write them.

“The most crucial thing is to learn the craft: how to string sentences together, how to make your dialogue sound like real people, how to properly pace a story, how to develop interesting characters.”

~ Stephen Coonts

“An author’s characters do what he wants them to do.”

~ W. E. B. Griffin

“I always try to tell a good story, one with a compelling plot that will keep the pages turning. That is my first and primary goal. Sometimes I can tackle an issue-homelessness, tobacco litigation, insurance fraud, the death penalty-and wrap a good story around it.”

~ John Grisham