Tips For Writers Quotes & Sayings

One, don't wait for inspiration, just start the damned thing. Two, once you begin, keep on until the end. How do you know how the story should begin until you find out where it's going? — Roger Ebert

Introduction of deus ex machina is a tell-tale sign of sloppy plotting. — Mike Mehalek

Only fools repeat the same things over and over, expecting to obtain different results. — George Bernard Shaw

Your main character not only needs a goal, she need an inner desire. — Jill Williamson

The only difference between writers and people who don't write is that writers aren't afraid to display their demons. — Carla H. Krueger

Plot comes from the mind but the characters come from the heart! — Varsha Dixit

Writers often torture themselves trying to get the words right. Sometimes you must lower your expectations and just finish it. — Don Roff

Someone asked me, 'How do you write a book?' I said, 'I live with a pen in one hand. — Carla H. Krueger

What golden hour of life, what glittering moment will ever equal the pain its loss can cause? — Paul Valery

Style and voice are different. Style is standard conventions of writing; voice is the distinct way an individual puts words together. All good writers have a near-uniform understanding of style, but a voice all their own. — Naveed Saleh

My job as a writer is simple. Write a book I'm proud of, and present it as a gift to the world.
Some will love it.
Some will hate it.
That's the nature of art. — Kathleen Baldwin

At this point, the analysis of gene expression in the brain isn't prectical because current (and foreseeable)techniques require that we analyze a piece of brain tissue. Most people find that unpleasant. — Matt Ridley

Don't let society's defined genre hold you down, be a free spirit and just write, let society be the one to decide where each piece fits in. — Uma Nnenna

The beginning of every writing session is like setting down a road unknown. — Rob Bignell, Editor

When you are writing a novel, you as the author will wear many hats. You are the writer, reader, and most importantly you are the character. If you can do those things your book will become reality to readers. — LaQuita Cameron

It's better to be remembered for what you said, not what you earned. — Carla H. Krueger

I realize that some of you may have come in hopes of hearing tips on how to
become a professional writer. I say to you, If you really want to hurt your
parents, and you don't have the nerve to be a homosexual, the least you can
do is go into the arts. But do not use semicolons. They are transvestite
hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've
been to college. — Kurt Vonnegut

I can't say it strongly enough; to integrate meditation in action is the whole ground and point and purpose of meditation — Sogyal Rinpoche

Remember this: a simple pen is much more swift and much more precise than a camera. That's my advice to both beginning and experienced authors: don't write with a camera. A camera is slow. All these modern writers usually make the same mistake - they write books with a film in mind. When you read their works, you don't hear the voice of a real author, you hear that horribly cheesy Hollywood voice-over. Frankly, that's not a novel, it's a movie script. If you write books, use a pen. A pen is swift, it has tempo, you can kill people with it. You cannot kill people with a camera, you can only perhaps bore them to death with it. — Martijn Benders

Tips can make someone a better writer but not necessarily a good writer. That's a larger package - a matter of character. Golfing is more than keeping the left arm straight. Every good golfer is a complex engine that runs on ability, ego, determination, discipline, patience, confidence, and other qualities that are self-taught. So it is with writers and all creative artists. If their values are solid their work is likely to be solid. — William Zinsser

Even if you're in the thick of revising another work, write something new. Something small. It's important to keep telling yourself stories. — Don Roff

If I don't stay in and write, I feel like a prisoner. — Carla H. Krueger

Writers can write whatever they want, but after THE END, when they self publish their book, they become accountable to readers for the quality of the book they're selling. — Eeva Lancaster

The best cure for cranial constipation is emotional fiber. Feel 'something', anything.
Pain, anger, joy; if your heart goes eerily cold or leaps erratically from your chest, your synaptic bowels will soon find release. — Muse

The reader wants to be able to see the book as if they are watching a movie. — LaQuita Cameron

Tips for aspiring writers: don't be afraid of writing rubbish. It's very easy to become hypnotised by an empty page or screen. It's tempting to abandon a half-finished work because you can't make it perfect. I hereby give you permission to write things that aren't perfect, make mistakes, try things that don't work, experiment with styles you're not used to and generally throw words around. You'll learn much faster that way. — Frances Hardinge

The fact is that if the writer's attention is on producing a work of art, a work that is good in itself, he is going to take great pains to control every excess, everything that does not contribute to this central meaning and design. He cannot indulge in sentimentality, in propagandizing, or in pornography and create a work of art, for all these things are excesses. They call attention to themselves and distract from the work as a whole. — Flannery O'Connor

After writing, there is the letting go part. Perfection is a myth; as we all get better by day.
Allow yourself to grow in active practice, release that book to the world, and do better with the next one. — Uma Nnenna

If we will not interfere with our thought, but will act entirely, or see how the thing stands in God, we know the particular thing, and every thing, and every man. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

We may say with some confidence that the most apparently beneficent products of science and industry should be held in suspicion if they are costly to consumers or bring power to governments or profits to corporations. There — Wendell Berry

Writer's groups work for some new writers, not for others. I was never cut out for a writer's group. So much depends on the people in it. What are they criticizing about your work? Grammar, syntax, plot holes? Or are they criticizing your personal style, your world view and your personal philosophy? If they're criticizing the latter, it's not a good group for you, no matter what support you might think you're getting from it. Your style, your perspective, and your philosophy of life are the main things you have to sell; they are what make you different, and you shouldn't
in fact you can't
change them. — Dean Koontz

Doing nothing can be as rewarding as doing something. And doing very little can be as productive, in a creative sense, as doing a lot. — Fennel Hudson

Books are like rivers, meandering this way and that, but taking us on a steady, flowing course to somewhere different. — Carla H. Krueger