Writing Fiction Quotes - Page 6

• The pleasure of writing fiction is that you are always spotting some new approach, an alternative way of telling a story and manipulating characters; the novel is such a wonderfully flexible form.

  Penelope Lively

  Writing, Character, Alternatives

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• Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith.

  Gore Vidal

  Country, Business, Writing

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• Mr. Franzen said he and Mr. Wallace, over years of letters and conversations about the ethical role of the novelist, had come to the joint conclusion that the purpose of writing fiction was “a way out of loneliness.” (NY Times article on the memorial service of David Foster Wallace.)

  Jonathan Franzen

  Loneliness, Writing, Years

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• The worst part of writing fiction is the fear of wasting your life behind a keyboard. The idea that, dying, you'll realize you only lived on paper. Your only adventures were make-believe, and while the world fought and kissed, you sat in some dark room masturbating and making money.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Fear, Believe, Writing

  Chuck Palahniuk (2004). “Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories”, NY Books

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• The trouble with writing fiction is that it has to make sense, whereas real life doesn't.

  Iain Banks

  Real, Writing, Fiction

  "Iain Banks: the final interview". Interview with Stuart Kelly, www.theguardian.com. June 15, 2013.

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• Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I'm always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it's very shocking to the system.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Life, Fall, Writing

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• Whether it is done quickly or slowly, however splendid the results, the process of writing fiction is inherently, inevitably, indistinguishable from wasting time.

  Deborah Eisenberg

  Writing, Fiction, Done

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• In science there is a dictum: don't add an experiment to an experiment. Don't make things unnecessarily complicated. In writing fiction, the more fantastic the tale, the plainer the prose should be. Don't ask your readers to admire your words when you want them to believe your story.

  Ben Bova

  Believe, Writing, Add

  Ben Bova (1998). “Twice Seven: Stories”, Eos

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• When you are writing fiction your task is to reflect the fullest complications of the world

  Julian Barnes

  Writing, Tasks, Fiction

  Julian Barnes, Vanessa Guignery, Ryan Roberts (2009). “Conversations with Julian Barnes”, p.65, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Writing fiction has developed in me an abiding respect for the unknown in a human lifetime and a sense of where to look for the threads, how to follow, how to connect, find in the thick of the tangle what clear line persists.

  Eudora Welty

  Respect, Writing, Abiding

  Eudora Welty (1995). “One Writer's Beginnings”, p.90, Harvard University Press

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• You learn a lot, writing fiction.

  Penelope Lively

  Writing, Fiction

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• Returning to writing fiction after 13 years away from it. Returning to the rootstock of my whole life as a writer. It's what I had wanted to be for my entire life, since I can remember, since my particular time immemorial. It's how I got my start as a writer.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Writing, Years, Fiction

  "Elizabeth Gilbert, 'Eat, Pray, Love' Author, On What It Takes To Get Inspired (PHOTOS)". Interview with Chantal Pierrat, www.huffingtonpost.com. August 11, 2013.

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• I think the thing that I lost in myself when I stopped writing fiction and the thing that I rediscovered and started mining again is, for lack of a better word, magic. It's the way you can brush up against the inexplicable and the mystical.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Writing, Thinking, Magic

  "Elizabeth Gilbert, ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ Author, On What It Takes To Get Inspired". Interview with Chantal Pierrat, www.huffingtonpost.com. August 11, 2013.

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• Yeah, I know what your English Professor tried to tell you. But if your English Professor could make a living writing fiction, they would have been doing it.

  Dean Wesley Smith

  Writing, Fiction, Yeah

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• I love stories, but writing fiction is another craft and I don't feel as if I have it.

  Joan Larkin

  Writing, Fiction, Stories

  "Road Trip". Interview with Ali Liebegott, logger.believermag.com. October 25, 2013.

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• Writing fiction is a good way to inhabit other minds, if not other lives.

  Sheila Heti

  Writing, Mind, Fiction

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• I have to have music as a soundtrack to writing fiction. I listen to it at other times, too, but it helps me write.

  Jeff VanderMeer

  Writing, Fiction, Helping

  Source: www.esquire.com

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• When I'm not writing, I can't make sense of out anything. I feel the need to make some sense and find some order, and writing fiction is the only way I've found that seems to begin to do that.

  Alice McDermott

  Writing, Order, Needs

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• I like rules. I like definitions, categories, and writing advice of all sorts. When I'm writing fiction, there are often a lot of things for me to try to get right at once, and rules help me to stay organized. But my favorite rule of all is that, ultimately, there are no rules.

  Bruce Holland Rogers

  Writing, Advice, Trying

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• I have turned away from the thought of writing fiction in the past through what I suppose is, actually, fear. The direct, raw invitation for the reader to come in and explore my imagination is fairly scary for me so I have busied myself with so much else.

  Dawn French

  Writing, Past, Imagination

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• Writing fiction is like music. You have to keep it moving. You can have slow movements but there has to be a sense of momentum, of going someplace. You hear a snatch of Beethoven and it has a sense of momentum that is unmistakably his. That's a nice quality if you can do it in fiction.

  John Updike

  Nice, Moving, Writing

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• I first started writing fiction in college because I was attracted to beautiful sentences. I loved to read them. I wanted to write them.

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Beautiful, Writing, College

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• I published only in academic journals in philosophy until I was in my 40s, but I had been writing fiction and poetry my whole adult life - without ever once trying to publish it, and rarely letting anyone read it.

  Cheryl Mendelson

  Philosophy, Writing, Trying

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• I tried writing fiction as a little kid, but had a teacher humiliate me, so didn't write again until I was a senior in college.

  Janet Fitch

  Senior, Teacher, Writing

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• So much emotion goes into writing fiction.

  Stephen L. Carter

  Writing, Fiction, Emotion

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