Writing

"Oh, and when I asked my listeners how many of them had ever thought about being a writer? What proportion raised their hands? At least two-thirds. Making me suspect, for the first time ever, that the urge to write is almost universal. As it would be, wouldn’t it, don’t you think? How else can you begin to come to terms with the fact of your... See more

"The most important is that the writer’s original perception of a character or characters may be as erroneous as the reader’s. Running a close second was the realization that stopping a piece of work just because it’s hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don’t feel like it, and sometimes... See more

"You are, in effect, dropping stones down a well. Every time you hear an echo from your Subconscious, you know yourself a little better. A small echo may start an idea. A big echo may result in a story." - Ray Bradbury

"The situation comes first. The characters—always flat and unfeatured, to begin with—come next." - Stephen King

"writing fiction in America as we enter the twenty-first century is no job for intellectual cowards. There are lots of would-be censors out there, and although they may have different agendas, they all want basically the same thing: for you to see the world they see… or to at least shut up about what you do see that’s different." - Stephen King

"The other me Demands emergence constantly." - Ray Bradbury

"Mostly when I think of pacing, I go back to Elmore Leonard, who explained it so perfectly by saying he just left out the boring parts." - Stephen King

"Plots and hooks yield the same desideratum: they set the reader a question, with the implicit assurance that the question will be answered." - Martin Amis

"Still, I believe the first draft of a book—even a long one—should take no more than three months, the length of a season." - Stephen King