Writing Craft Talent Quotes

A writer feels happy when the words connect with the reader's heart. ~ Avijeet Das

Serious literature does not exist to make life easy but to complicate it. ~ Witold Gombrowicz

[G]reat stories communicate simple truths that reflect the poetic dimensions of the human soul. Not only do powerful characters help us understand our lives, their stories reflect our core values as human beings. ~ Kate Wright

What you need to remember is that there's a difference between lecturing about what you know and using it to enrich the story. The latter is good. The former is not. ~ Stephen King

An idea for a story can be anything. The sky is not the limit, the limit is beyond it. ~ Chrys Fey

What draws us into a story and keeps us there is the firing of our dopamine neurons, signaling that intriguing information is on the way. ~ Lisa Cron

Some writers are the kind of solo violinists who need complete silence to tune their instruments. Others want to hear every member of the orchestra - they'll take a cue from a clarinet, from an oboe, even. I am one of those. My writing desk is covered in open novels. I read lines to swim in a certain sensibility, to strike a particular note, to encourage rigour when I'm too sentimental, to bring verbal ease when I'm syntactically uptight. I think of reading like a balanced diet; if your sentences are baggy, too baroque, cut back on fatty Foster Wallace, say, and pick up Kafka, as roughage. If your aesthetic has become so refined it is stopping you from placing a single black mark on white paper, stop worrying so much about what Nabokov would say; pick up Dostoyevsky, patron saint of substance over style. ~ Zadie Smith

Inspiration surrounds us, the creation is our responsibility as artists.-Lyn Crain ~ Lyn Crain

Writing is my oxygen. Music is my carbon dioxide. ~ Jessica Bell

Remember if you write, write, write, you can never be wrong.
Stephanie Skeem Author of Flotsam ~ Stephanie Skeem

Most people say, "Show, don't tell," but I stand by Show and Tell, because when writers put their work out into the world, they're like kids bringing their broken unicorns and chewed-up teddy bears into class in the sad hope that someone else will love them as much as they do. ~ Colson Whitehead

The building of the architecture of a novel - the craft of it - is something I never tire of. ~ John Irving

You are not an "author," you are a writer. If your books are still selling like hotcakes ten years after your demise, THEN you're an author. ~ H.P. Oliver

Writing to corroborate what you already think is the essence of bad writing. ~ Victor LaValle

T[he rules of writing] require that the episodes in a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help to develop it. ~ Mark Twain

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

So I have to create the whole thing afresh for myself each time. Probably all writers now are in the same boat. It is the penalty we pay for breaking with tradition, and the solitude makes the writing more exciting though the being read less so. One ought to sink to the bottom of the sea, probably, and live alone with ones words. ~ Virginia Woolf

I tell everyone who asks me about writing ... almost everyone has an idea for a book, and some even have a great ending, but it's that 290 or so pages in between that are tough! ~ Brooklyn Hudson

Suspense doesn't always have to be about physical danger. Making the reader worry is a universal concept that can be applied to any story. ~ Sandy Vaile

My writing isn't a career or a craft or a hobby or anything like that. It is more like a tiny annex to my life, a little crawl space in which I occasionally end up by accident in the dark. ~ Gary Lutz

I always tell my writing students that every good piece of writing begins with both a mystery and a love story. And that every single sentence must be a poem. And that economy is the key to all good writing. And that every character has to have a secret. ~ Silas House

Writers have come to master nearly every trade. They are inventors and entrepreneurs of character, plot, and dialogue. They are the eager scientists that can't wait to try out their new experiment. They are the maestros of the symphony that plays in their head, conducting what happens, where, and at what precise moment. They are engineers and architects that design the structure of their piece so it stands the test of time and continues to fire on all cylinders. They play mechanics and doctors in their revisions, hoping they prescribe the correct diagnosis to fix the piece's 'boo boos'. They are salesmen who pitch not an idea or a product, but themselves, to editors, publishers, and more importantly, their readers. They are teachers who through their craft, preach to pupils about what works and what doesn't work and why. Writers can make you feel, can make you think, can make you wonder, but they can also grab your hand and guide you through their maze. Similar to what Emerson stated in 'The Poet,' writers possess a unique view on life, and with their revolving eye, they attempt to encompass all. I am a writer. ~ Garrett Dennert

Writing is hard. Writing that is good, writing that is powerful enough to evoke a change or an authentic emotion or even just an idea in another human being is about as mysterious as an alchemical recipe, but there are a few known ingredients. Craft? Yes, absolutely. Devotion? A load - yes! Humility? Not vital, I suppose, but all my favorites include at least a dash. Before those can be added to the cauldron though, you must have a base of Honesty. Honesty is difficult to find in public spaces these days (and getting harder every goddamn day) but if you're quiet, and patient, you can usually find some hidden in your room somewhere. (It helps to turn off the lights, for some reason.) Problem is, Honesty is invariably bound to Vulnerability and the only thing that cuts the bitterness of Vulnerability is Courage. And Courage?
Well. Courage is the hardest thing of all. ~ Kelly Sue DeConnick

Initially I was sad and lonely. I would spend sleepless nights feeling morose, sad, and dejected. I suffered from depression. I would go blank some moments. I would collapse in my room in utter sadness.

Then I fought back at life. I wanted to give life a good fight. I embraced each struggle and each hardship in my life. I started reading and writing with passion. I started writing regularly. And I started sharing my emotions, feelings, thoughts, and stories with others. ~ Avijeet Das

You know, I always say musicians, they can do it on their own. They can practice their violin on their own. A painter can paint by himself. A writer can write by himself. But an actor needs a group, and the hardest thing about expanding your ability and your craft is to have a group to do it with that is of a caliber where you can grow even more. ~ Anne Archer

Don't start right off writing the 'Great American Novel', that's too much pressure and you'll get disappointed; start with porn, it's fun and a good way to get your feet wet. ~ Scavola

People are suckers for the truth and they know it when they see it.

Open your soul and they will stop and watch. ~ Dan Alatorre

Real talent harnesses what it has and unlocks what it doesn't. There is natural ability, there is the discipline that develops natural ability, there is the unending study of one's craft, and there is the exponential lifting of performance by the selfless combination of efforts. ~ Ken Goldstein

It takes most of us a long time to learn our craft. So keep at it. Don't give up. ~ Jacqueline Briskin

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to your new home.' He gestured to the stone walls of the cavern that surrounded them. 'Your lives as you once knew them are over,' he continued. 'You have been selected, all of you, the worst, the most cunning, the most mischievous minds from around the world . . . selected to become part of an institution like no other. You have all exhibited certain unique abilities, abilities that set you apart from the mediocrity of the teeming masses and which mark you out as the leaders of tomorrow. Here, in this place, you will be furnished with the knowledge and experience to best exploit your own natural abilities, to hone your craft to a cutting edge.'

He paused and slowly surveyed the pale, wide-eyed faces before him.

'Each of you has within you a rare quality, a gift if you will, a special talent for the supremely villainous. Society would have us believe that this is an undesirable characteristic, something that should be subdued, controlled, destroyed. But not here . . . no, here we want to see you blossom into all that you can be, to see your innate wickedness flourish, to make you the very worst that you can be.'

He stepped out from behind the lectern and walked to the edge of the raised platform. As he loomed over them he seemed to grow taller and some of those at the front of the group edged backwards nervously.

'For today all of you have the unique honour and privilege of becoming the newest students ~ Mark Walden

I came on the old and best ways of writing through ignorance and experiment and was startled when truths leaped out of brushes like quail before gunshot. ~ Ray Bradbury

Every artist needs canvass, mine just happens to be Microsoft Word and a Thesaurus. ~ Lori Lesko

I am writing in the garden. To write as one should of a garden one must write not outside it or merely somewhere near it, but in the garden. ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

There are many rules of good writing, but the best way to find them is to be a good reader. ~ Stephen E. Ambrose

You can't have good ideas unless you have lots of ideas. ~ Linus Pauling