Quotes & Sayings About Effective Writing

I prefer to think that no writer has got time to be too concerned with style, that he is simply telling this dramatic instance in the most effective way he knows, that the book, the story, creates its own style. — William Faulkner

In my long career in this historical fiction business, though, I've found that the most effective storytelling concept is this: Once upon a time it was now.
That has become my credo and my method as a longtime historical novelist.
It's quite simple, if you see as Janus sees:
Today is now.
Yesterday was now.
Tomorrow will be now.
Three hundred years ago, the eighteenth century was now.
You, as a historical novelist, can make any time now by taking your reader into that time. Once you grasp that, the rest is just hard work.
Stay with me, and you'll see how such work is done. — James Alexander Thom

When you write a program, think of it primarily as a work of literature. You're trying to write something that human beings are going to read. Don't think of it primarily as something a computer is going to follow. The more effective you are at making your program readable, the more effective it's going to be: You'll understand it today, you'll understand it next week, and your successors who are going to maintain and modify it will understand it. — Donald Knuth

The basic rule [of writing] given us was simple and heartbreaking. A story to be effective had to convey something from the writer to the reader, and the power of its offering was the measure of its excellence. Outside of that, there were no rules. — John Steinbeck

To these things do writers sink; and then the critics tell them that they "talk for effect"; and then the writers answer: "What the devil else should we talk for? Ineffectualness? — G.K. Chesterton

Dialogue is the ideal means of showing what is between the characters. It crystallizes relationships. It should, ideally, be so effective as to make analysis or explanation of the relationships between the characters unnecessary. — Elizabeth Bowen

I have discovered the most exciting, the most arduous literary form of all, the most difficult to master, the most pregnant in curious possibilities. I mean the advertisement. It is far easier to write ten passably effective Sonnets, good enough to take in the not too inquiring critic, than one effective advertisement that will take in a few thousand of the uncritical buying public. — Aldous Huxley

A good athlete can enter a state of body-awareness in which the right stroke or the right movement happens by itself, effortlessly, without any interference of the conscious will. This is a paradigm for non-action: the purest and most effective form of action. The game plays the game; the poem writes the poem; we can't tell the dancer from the dance. It happens when we trust the intelligence of the universe in the same way that an athlete or a dancer trusts the superior intelligence of the body. — Laozi

Tout les jours you are coming some fresh game or other on me, mais vous ne pouvez pas play this savon dodge on me twice! — Mark Twain

I realized that the good stories were affecting the organs of my body in various ways, and the really good ones were stimulating more than one organ. An effective story grabs your gut, tightens your throat, makes your heart race and your lungs pump, brings tears to your eyes or an explosion of laughter to your lips. — Christopher Vogler

When writing emails, the rule is, the shorter and more effective your email, the better. — Jason Luong

Again, the most effective (and least destructive) way to help a child succeed - whether she's writing or skiing, playing a trumpet or a computer game - is to do everything possible to help her fall in love with what she's doing, to pay less attention to how successful she was (or is likely to be) and show more interest in the task. That's just another way of saying that we need to encourage more, judge less, and love always. — Alfie Kohn

I think I might write a book. I like writing. People have asked me if I would get into politics, but I think I feel a lot more effective being a representative of truth through the arts. — Serj Tankian

Times change and discoveries are made that render earlier techniques and approaches less effective. Change is inevitable. To remain rigid when the whole world is changing and advancing is to invite misfortune. The AA program in particular is challenged with an opportunity of unprecedented magnitude. — Chris Prentiss

In the pre-war era when itinerant home-remedy salesmen still wandered the country, they had a traditional patter for selling a potion that was supposed to be particularly effective in treating burns and cuts. A toad with four legs in front and six behind would be placed in a box with mirrors lining the four walls. The toad, amazed at its own appearance from every angle, would break into an oily sweat. This sweat would be collected and simmered for 3,721 days while being stirred with a willow branch. The result was the marvelous potion.
When writing about myself, I feel something like that toad in the box. — Akira Kurosawa

How does a weaker minority dominate a physically superior majority? In my research I learned that this is accomplished by destroying the slave's mind. More effective than whips and guns was the simple act of outlawing the teaching of slaves to read and to write. — Kyle Baker

Becoming an effective letter writer means analyzing each situation individually and choosing the form of correspondence accordingly. — Scribendi

Perhaps the most simple, and effective, way to initially judge a piece of writing is to ask yourself: is this something I wish I had done myself, or am I glad I didn't? — Scott L. Montgomery

Writing something new is an effective way to get rid of writer's block. Or you can observe the people around you and fantasize like I do. — B.A. Gabrielle

I've realized the most effective writing and living are done when we are willing to be vulnerable. I think we spend most of our lives trying to cover up our insecurities. — Katie Kiesler

In any case, you can't have effective allegory in times when people are swept this way and that by momentary convictions, because everyone will read it differently. You can't indicate moral values when morality changes with what is being done, because there is no accepted basis of judgment. And you cannot show the operation of grace when grace is cut off from nature or when the very possibility of grace is denied, because no one will have the least idea of what you are about. — Flannery O'Connor

Humor, drama, romance, whatever genre of entertainment you create or consume is only effective if it is challenging to your sensibilities. When the sexuality of seeing a woman's ankles became trumped by her calf, society changed. When the calf was later trumped by a woman offering shots of alcohol from her vagina on Rock of Love, society changed again. My hope for this world is that we can soon run out of shocking body parts and can finally see the humor in our aetheric bodies. — Christy Leigh Stewart

You must become an expert on a product, service or anything you write about to really be effective. — Joseph Sugarman

I had never understood quite so clearly the effective power of Jane Jacob's writing - no, her clear-headed observation - as I did reading "What We See". Maybe that's really the point of writing. That if you take the time to look, to really observe, then you see what is happening, and, with the clarity of that vision, you can act to save neighborhoods. — Nancy Milford

One of the most unexpected findings of my research was that introverted pastors felt very comfortable preaching, irrespective of congregation size. Many of them actually considered it their biggest strength and favorite part of the job. They found that their natural tendencies toward study, scholarship and writing translated into effective preaching and teaching. — Adam S. McHugh

I've realized the most effective way to write, for me, is knowing what to throw away. — Youth Lagoon

It is absurd to imagine that any child will be able to earn a living, let alone contribute to resolving our world's complex problems, without knowing how to read and write. My foundation supports the National Writing Project so that teachers can be more effective in their efforts to improve literacy for all students. — Isabel Allende

When you are writing a spoken word poem, the tools you're working with are your voice, your body, how it's going to sound to someone when you're saying it out loud. Which is different from when you're writing it on the page. That toolbox becomes how does this look visually on the page, how does this read among pages, how is this in relation to poems that are before it or after it. I don't think one is better or more successful than the other. You've just gotta think about "what are the tools I'm using, and how are they most effective in this form?" — Phil Kay

In writing this, I am not being political, but am rather pointing out the deeply divided condition of the nation. Divisions range from politics to religion to race. Not since the Civil War have we seen so many fractures in so many places at such deep levels. We are no longer "one nation" and no longer does our nation regard itself to be "under God" in any effective sense. The bad news is that we are beyond healing. Certain trends have been allowed to go too far unchecked and we now live with a shattered national consciousness, a downgraded consciousness of morality and a broken sense of who we are as a people. — R. Loren Sandford

I actually run a non-profit where one of the main objectives is to branch out and get a new audience for the theater. Just because the writing is so good and nothing is more effective than seeing something live and happening right in front of your face, so I definitely want to continue to pursue that. — Adam Driver

I make it a practice to avoid hating anyone. If someone's been guilty of despicable actions, especially toward me, I try to forget him. I used to follow a practice-somewhat contrived, I admit-to write the man's name on a piece of scrap paper, drop it into the lowest drawer of my desk, and say to myself: "That finishes the incident, and so far as I'm concerned, that fellow. The drawer became over the years a sort of private wastebasket for crumpled-up spite and discarded personalities. Besides, it seemed to be effective, and helped me avoid harboring useless black feelings." — Dwight D. Eisenhower

As you know, I have over the years written critically about the U.N. I have consistently stressed in my writings that American leadership is critical to the success of the U.N., an effective U.N., one that is true to the original intent of its charter's framers. — John Bolton

I don't care about truth; I care about art and style and writing and occupying the wall. For me, my writing style is very linked to the fact that it is a work of art on the wall. I had to find a way to write in concise, effective phrases that people standing or walking into a room could read. — Sophie Calle

Ruskin's interest in beauty and in its possession led him to five central conclusions. First, beauty was the result of a number of complex factors that affected the mind both psychologically and visually. Second, humans had an innate tendency to respond to beauty and to desire to possess it. Third, there were many lower expressions of this desire for possession (including, as we have seen, buying souvenirs and carpets, carving one's name on a pillar and taking photographs). Fourth, there was only one way to possess beauty properly, and that was by understanding it, by making oneself conscious of the factors (psychological and visual) responsible for it. And last, the most effective means of pursuing this conscious understanding was by attempting to describe beautiful places through art, by writing about or drawing them, irrespective of whether one happened to have any talent for doing so. — Alain De Botton

I love writing, but I stopped because I felt I was more effective approaching filmmaking from a different vantage point. — Jack Nicholson

When you're writing for theater or TV, it's open-ended in scope. You can write 10 separate pieces that are really effective but have no place on a rock record or whatever. — John Parish

There have been periods in my life where I have experienced depression. It has been through some of my darkest moments that I have written some of my best songs. For me, singing and writing is very therapeutic. It's much more effective than taking Prozac! — Gerry Rafferty

Habits like blogging often and regularly, writing down the way you think, being clear about what you think are effective tactics, ignoring the burbling crowd and not eating bacon. All of these are useful habits. — Seth Godin

We need to boost each other to get to the top. It is much more effective than stepping on each other. — Teresa Mummert

Until recently we've only been able to speculate about story's persuasive effects. But over the last several decades psychology has begun a serious study of how story affects the human mind. Results repeatedly show that our attitudes, fears, hopes, and values are strongly influenced by story. In fact, fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than writing that is specifically designed to persuade through argument and evidence. — Jonathan Gottschall

The most effective way of destroying art is the canonization of one given form. And one philosophy. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

There's always moral instruction whether the writer inserts it deliberately or not. The least effective moral instruction in fiction is that which is consciously inserted. Partly because it won't reflect the storyteller's true beliefs, it will only reflect what he BELIEVES he believes, or what he thinks he should believe or what he's been persuaded of.
But when you write without deliberately expressing moral teachings, the morals that show up are the ones you actually live by. The beliefs that you don't even think to question, that you don't even notice
those will show up. And that tells much more truth about what you believe than your deliberate moral machinations. — Orson Scott Card

Just as an effective advertisement or page layout includes a lot of white space, a powerful scene requires immense restraint. Show things as simply as possible. — Diana Gabaldon

The fear of a work becoming dated is one of the most effective tools for keeping people from writing political work. — Tony Kushner

This sound self-serving, but being interested in everything makes you a more effective opportunist - and that's what an editor has to be, a student of unintended consequences. — Terry McDonell

I think the effective use of quotation is an important point in the art of writing. Given sparingly, quotations serve admirably as a climax or as a corroboration, but when they are long and frequent, they seriously weaken the effect of a book. We lose sight of the writer - he scatters our sympathy among others than himself - and the ideas which he himself advances are not knit together with our impression of his personality. — George Eliot

Maugham then offers the greatest advice anyone could give to a young author: At the end of an interrogation sentence, place a question mark. You'd be surprised how effective it can be. — Woody Allen

When all things are equal, translucence in writing is more effective than transparency, just as glow is more revealing than glare. — James Thurber

I write to tame and organise the thoughts that bubble in my head. I write for the part of me that's inconsolable and don't have the hands or the talent for painting, pottery or the piano. I write because it's proven more effective than screaming to communicate my personal truths. I write because publication provides the perfect payback for a painful childhood and because I'm addicted to alliteration, a glutton for grammar and ruled by the rule of three. I continue writing to discover where my imagination will take me; because if I stopped, I'd no longer be me. — Anne Goodwin

Write about just one thing, I have said, and there is wisdom in this advice ... And yet, there is wisdom also in William Sloanes contrary observation: Almost all effective writing above the level of the soup can turns out to be about quite a lot of things fused or laced or linked together. — Lucy Calkins

I think pain is the best feeling for song writing. You can write good happy songs, but I think the kind of bruiting, depressing ones are more effective. They are easier to write when I am impassioned and angry. It is a good way to channel that negative energy. — Adam Levine

As I write in my book, there is a misnomer that destroying another person's position is an effective and practical way to negotiate. — Leigh Steinberg

Amory took to writing poetry on spring afternoons, in the gardens of the big estates near Princeton, while swans made effective atmosphere in the artificial pools, and slow clouds sailed harmoniously above the willow. May came too soon, and suddenly unable to bear walls, he wandered the campus at all hours through starlight and rain. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Journaling is the single most effective tool you may ever find for deeper intimacy with Father God and Jesus. It is a heart-to-heart method of communication with God. For you see, it is God's desire to intimately commune with you and to have you intimately commune with Him. Journaling facilitates this heart-to-heart communion - it is simply listening to each other's heart and writing it down.
Journaling helps you hear God's voice. God is speaking to you most of the time. Often you do not differentiate His voice from your own thoughts and therefore do not realize you are actually hearing God's voice. If you can learn to clearly discern His voice speaking within you, you have found the font of intimacy - the heart of God speaking to you. — Linda Boone