Beginning Writers Quotes

• The best time to plan a book is while you're doing the dishes.

  Agatha Christie

  Time, Book, Memorable

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• A writer, or a beginning writer, is faced by the huge walls of self-consciousness. Most people think, "What if I say the wrong thing? What if I don't sound erudite and sophisticated? I'll be considered a fool." In time, with a lot of practice, you realize that's your foolishness is your gift.

  Richard Bach

  Wall, Thinking, Self

  Interview with Michael Peter Langevin, www.inner-growth.info.

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• So often with beginning writers, the story that they want to start with is the most important story of their life - my molestation, my this, my horrible drug addiction - they want to tell that most important story, and they don't have the skills to tell it yet, so it ends up becoming a comedy. A powerful story told poorly becomes funny, it just makes people laugh behind their hands.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Powerful, Hands, Skills

  Source: www.buzzfeed.com

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• One thing about beginning writers is that they don't really always know their own strengths and weaknesses - you might think you're bad at characterization, but that might really be because of some issue you're having with another element, which is making it hard for you to express character in a convincing way.

  Jeff VanderMeer

  Character, Thinking, Issues

  Source: www.barnesandnoble.com

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• What’s strange is how many beginning writers seem to think that grammar is irrelevant, or that they are somehow above or beyond this subject more fit for a schoolchild than the future author of great literature.

  Francine Prose

  Thinking, Literature, Strange

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• One of the biggest problems for beginning writers is this need to over-explain.

  Scarlett Thomas

  Needs, Problem

  Scarlett Thomas (2012). “Monkeys with Typewriters: How to Write Fiction and Unlock the Secret Power of Stories”, p.215, Canongate Books

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• When you first start writing-and I think it's true for a lot of beginning writers-you're scared to death that if you don't get that sentence right that minute it's never going to show up again. And it isn't. But it doesn't matter-another one will, and it'll probably be better. And I don't mind writing badly for a couple of days because I know I can fix it-and fix it again and again and again, and it will be better.

  Toni Morrison

  Couple, Writing, Thinking

  Toni Morrison, Carolyn C. Denard (2008). “What Moves at the Margin: Selected Nonfiction”, p.79, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• I would advise any beginning writer to write the first drafts as if no one else will ever read them - without a thought about publication - and only in the last draft to consider how the work will look from the outside.

  Anne Tyler

  Writing, Looks, Lasts

  Author Q&A by Penguin Random House, www.penguinrandomhouse.com.

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• Most beginning writers - and I was the same - are like chefs trying to cook great dishes that they've never tasted themselves. How can you make a great - or even an adequate - bouillabaisse if you've never had any? If you don't really understand why people read mysteries - or romances or literary novels or thrillers or whatever - then there's no way in the world you're going to write one that anyone wants to publish. This is the meaning of the well-known expression "Write what you know."

  Daniel Quinn

  Writing, Expression, People

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• Less really is more. It's a tendency of beginning writers to want to prove what they're talking about by going too far with description. I think you've got to keep it short, crisp and clean

  Brad Thor

  Thinking, Talking, Want

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• When you finally start to write something, do not let yourself stop...even when you are convinced it's the worst garbage ever. This is the biggest caveat for beginning writers. Instead, force yourself to finish what you began, and THEN go back and edit it.

  Jodi Picoult

  Writing, Garbage, Force

  FAQs, www.jodipicoult.com. August 2016.

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• Be persistent. Editors change; tastes change; editorial markets change. Too many beginning writers give up too easily.

  John Jakes

  Giving Up, Editors, Taste

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• Don't mistake a good setup for a satisfying conclusion - many beginning writers end their stories when the real story is just ready to begin.

  Stanley Schmidt

  Real, Mistake, Writing

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• Beginning writers are often advised to 'write what you know,' and since I knew about quilters - their quirks, their inside jokes, their disputes and their generosity, their quarrels and their kindnesses - the lives of quilters became a natural subject for me. Quilting wove together my two themes as completely and effortlessly as I could have hoped.

  Jennifer Chiaverini

  Kindness, Writing, Two

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• The most basic definition of a story is 'Somebody wants something and something's in his way,' and I'm more likely to be engaged if I at least think I know what those two 'somethings' are. They can be simple, they can be complex, but - particularly if you're a beginning writer - I'd rather you err on the side of revealing too much than too little.

  Mark Waid

  Simple, Thinking, Two

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• A young musician plays scales in his room and only bores his family. A beginning writer, on the other hand, sometimes has the misfortune of getting into print.

  Marguerite Yourcenar

  Writing, Hands, Play

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• Beginning writers must appreciate the prerequisites if they hope to become writers. You pay your dues - which takes years.

  Alex Haley

  Writing, Years, Appreciate

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• I have only one bit of advice to beginning writers: be sure your novel is read by Rodgers and Hammerstein.

  James A. Michener

  Advice, Novel, Bits

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