Writing

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

"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 existe... See more

"For the first thing a writer should be is—excited. He should be a thing of fevers and enthusiasms." - Ray Bradbury

"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

"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

"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot." - Stephen King

"I circled around summer noons and October midnights, sensing that there somewhere in the bright and dark seasons must be something that was really me." - Ray Bradbury

"What a story is “about” is to be found in the curiosity it creates in us, which is a form of caring." - George Saunders

"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