Sol Stein Quotes & Sayings

Readers, transformed by film and TV, are used to seeing stories. The reading experience ... is increasingly visual. — Sol Stein

There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein. — Sol Stein

Arousal is nature's stimulus for the propagation of the human race. The unaroused male of the species is as useless for that purpose as a worm. Arousal can happen sooner or later, but it must happen. — Sol Stein

The single characteristic that most makes a difference in the success of an article or nonfiction book is the author's courage in revealing normally unspoken things about himself or his society. It takes guts to be a writer — Sol Stein

Our instinct as human beings is to provide answers, to ease tension. As writers our job is the opposite, to create tension and not dispel it immediately. — Sol Stein

A reader's emotions can be sparked with few words. That's the power of dialogue. — Sol Stein

When we get involved with other people, the chances of a clash are present even with people we love because we do not have the same scripts in our heads. — Sol Stein

In our not-yet-acknowledged secret garden lie the seeds of some of our best not-yet-written stories — Sol Stein

The function of suspense is to put the reader in danger of an overfull bladder. — Sol Stein

To create tension, dialogue needs to be stretched out. That is, characters should not be immediately responsive. — Sol Stein

Parents begin by loving their children; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them. — Sol Stein

The expert magician seeks to deceive the mind, rather than the eye. — Sol Stein

Readers take in dialogue one thought at a time. A frequent mistake of beginners is to combine thoughts, which may be suitable for other forms of writing but not for dialogue. Another mistake is speechifying. Three sentences at a time is tops, yet many beginners write speeches that go on and on. — Sol Stein

The biggest difference between a writer and a would-be writer is their attitude toward rewriting ... Unwillingness to revise usually signals an amateur. — Sol Stein

Most of the time, tough, combative, adversarial dialogue is much more exciting than physical action. — Sol Stein

Today's readers can be roughly divided into two groups, those who accept the fantasy villains of childhood, as in the James Bond stories and Arnold Schwarzenegger films, and those who insist on credibility. — Sol Stein

You can never know enough about your characters. — Sol Stein

Be sure you don't stop the story while describing. You are a storyteller, not an interior decorator. — Sol Stein

Dialogue, contrary to popular view, is not a recording of actual speech; it is a semblance of speech, an invented language of exchanges that build in tempo or content toward climaxes. — Sol Stein

A writer writes what other people only think. — Sol Stein

It can be said that one slip of point of view by a writer can hurt a story badly, and several slips can be fatal.' Stein on Writing — Sol Stein

Dialogue is a lean language in which every word counts. — Sol Stein

In America only the successful writer is important, in France all writers are important, in England no writer is important, in Australia you have to explain what a writer is. — Sol Stein

I see manuscripts and books that are spoiled for the literary reader because they are one long stream of top-of-the-head writing, a writer telling a story without concern for precision or freshness in the use of language. Some of this storytelling reads as if it were spoken rather than written, stuffed with tired images that pop into the writer's head because they are so familiar. The top of the head is fit for growing hair, but not for generating fine prose. — Sol Stein

A writer who always has his characters "walk" is missing opportunities. — Sol Stein

Say it new or say it straight. — Sol Stein

A lawyer's job is to manipulate the skeletons in other people's closets. — Sol Stein

Tension produces instantaneous anxiety, and the reader finds it delicious. — Sol Stein

Writers of nonfiction have the right - perhaps even the responsibility - to access the wonders of the writer's craft to make their work interesting and enjoyable. — Sol Stein