Wendig Quotes & Sayings

Question marks are shaped like hooks for a reason: they will hook the reader and drag them deeper into the story — Chuck Wendig

A fully-realized and known world is also a boring world. Mystery, alongside conflict, is another of those vital vittles that feeds the reader and keeps them hooked. Question marks are shaped like hooks for a reason, I say
so leave lots of questions. — Chuck Wendig

Your first draft can and should look like a fucking warzone. That's okay. Don't sweat it, because you survived. Put differently, that first draft of yours has permission to suck. Go forth and care not. — Chuck Wendig

Always quick with the wit. It's your defense, isn't it? Little girl doesn't want the world to know how sad she is, how damaged. Your words, your attitude, all a big misdirection. A magician's trick. — Chuck Wendig

You can't be friends with a droid. — Chuck Wendig

Dang, that sounds like a fucking movie and shit. Sleep Hard 4: Sleep Harder. — Chuck Wendig

She thinks, I want an orange soda. And I want vodka to mix into the orange soda. And while we're at it, I'd also like to stop being able to see how people are going to bite it. Oh, and a pony. I definitely want a goddamn pony. — Chuck Wendig

You don't know what you're doing," Mitchell says. "Poking a stick into a den of snakes." "Poke-poke, motherfuckers." Atlanta pulls the trigger. — Chuck Wendig

Failure is an instruction manual written in scar tissue. — Chuck Wendig

Even a small group of people can change the galaxy. — Chuck Wendig

Story should be a descent
the feeling that there is an intense gravity to the narrative that draws you down, down, down. — Chuck Wendig

Plot is like Soylent Green: it's made of people. — Chuck Wendig

Stories have the power to make people feel. To give a shit. To change their opinions. To change the world. — Chuck Wendig

Naughty business, this Empire. — Chuck Wendig

Chewbacca's back home, looking for his family. Luke's searching the galaxy for old Jedi teachings. Han Solo's got nothing to smuggle, nowhere to gamble, no foolish Rebellion to fight for. He's like the Falcon: retired to a hangar somewhere, waiting for something, anything, to happen. — Chuck Wendig

You wanted to show us ... a battle droid? The most incompetent droid soldier in the history of both the Republic and the Empire. A mechanical comedy of errors. — Chuck Wendig

People like the illusion of choice. Gives them comfort in these strange times. — Chuck Wendig

The SUV carves its way through dark pine forests. Morning sun passes through the pleached trees, dappling the windows of the vehicle. — Chuck Wendig

Writers and actors have some creative ground in common, and so when you're writing a scene and hoping to convey a mood it's not the worst idea to try to put that mood into your headspace -- feel it, if only a little. I'm not saying you have to kill a kitten or punch your mother to feel something -- I just mean, stir up the memory of certain emotions if not the emotion itself. Same way an actor might think about a sad moment to conjure tears on-camera. 23. — Chuck Wendig

Here are the two states in which you may exist: person who writes, or person who does not. If you write: you are a writer. If you do not write: you are not. Aspiring is a meaningless null state that romanticizes Not Writing. It's as ludicrous as saying, "I aspire to pick up that piece of paper that fell on the floor." Either pick it up or don't. I don't want to hear about how your diaper's full. Take it off or stop talking about it. — Chuck Wendig

For it is time to return home. It is time to return democracy to the galaxy. — Chuck Wendig

Ackbar interjects: But we also must recognize the Empire's ability to play the long game. Our victory over Endor was fortunate, but the Empire orchestrated that trap with great patience. — Chuck Wendig

We're all the heroes of our own tales. Even villains. — Chuck Wendig

Use the words that live inside your head. And if the words that live inside your head are those of a sentimental Victorian troubadour, then please close your head in a door jamb until you kill all that overwrought prose in an act of brain damage. — Chuck Wendig

I am going to do what every wife must do now and again," she says. "I am going to go rescue my husband. — Chuck Wendig

Mon wants this transition to be as peaceable as possible. That is, of course, a noble goal. And in late nights the chancellor confided in Leia that she is wisely struck by the fear of what happened the first time the parasite of Palpatine squirmed under the skin. How easy it was for him to prey on the anxieties of the galaxy. How simple it was for him to turn system against system by stoking the fires of xenophobia, anger, selfishness. (And here Luke's voice echoes in her mind: The ways and tools of the dark side, Leia.) How do you form an Empire? By stealing a Republic. And how do you steal a Republic? By convincing its people that they cannot govern themselves - that freedom is their enemy and that fear is their ally. Palpatine — Chuck Wendig

The future is a door. — Chuck Wendig

And in the months since the destruction of the Empire's dread battle station, we have already liberated countless planets in the name of the Alliance. — Chuck Wendig

So why, then, can't Ackbar shake the feeling that once again they are about to fall into a trap? — Chuck Wendig

Creativity needs time. We're all dying. Fuck stagnation. High-five creation. — Chuck Wendig

The Empire is just a skin we wear, you see. A shell. It's not just about law and order. It's about total control. — Chuck Wendig

It starts with my mother ... .Boys get fucked up by their fathers, right? That's why so many tales are really Daddy Issue stories at their core, because men run the world, and men get to tell their stories first. If women told most of the stories, though, then all the best stories would be about Mommy Problems. — Chuck Wendig

What...what are you?" she asked.
"I'm Batman. — Chuck Wendig

People believe any horseshit shoved in their ears long as you say 'terrorist. — Chuck Wendig

This is democracy," she says. "It is strange. And it is messy. It's not about getting it right. It's about trying to get it right. Yes, it's a bit chaotic. Certainly we will get some things wrong. — Chuck Wendig

A chill crawls up Miriam's spine. A parade of baby spiders. — Chuck Wendig

Earth is home to more than twelve thousand species of ants. If you weighed all the ants and all the humans, the ants would weigh more. — Chuck Wendig

He watches a vid of Brin reading from the Journal of the Whills: "The truth in our soul, Is that nothing is true. The question of life Is what then do we do? The burden is ours To penance, we hew. The Force binds us all From a certain point of view." Addar fails to understand what it means, but he admits: He enjoys listening to Brin. — Chuck Wendig

Mmph! Mmph. Translation: The Emperor will have your heads for this. — Chuck Wendig

It's a fucking Fiero, dude. It's twenty years old. It has 150,000 miles on it, which is practically what it takes to get to the moon. I'm going to bet if I open this thing up, it's going to smell like stale Drakkar Noir and chemical pine scent. There is probably a dead rat in the trunk. Maybe a whole nest of dead rats and rat babies." She finishes her drawing. (Spoiler alert: it's a penis.) "You should really be paying me to take this burden of Detroit steel off your hands. — Chuck Wendig

Walls tagged with graffiti (one such piece of tagging: a stencil of a familiar Sith Lord's helmet with the phrase beneath it reading VADER LIVES). — Chuck Wendig

How do you steal a Republic? By convincing its people that they cannot govern themselves - that freedom is their enemy and that fear is their ally. — Chuck Wendig

Did you just say shrug instead of actually shrugging? — Chuck Wendig

The Empire is in chaos. As the old order crumbles, the fledgling New Republic seeks a swift end to the galactic conflict. Many Imperial leaders have fled from their posts, hoping to escape justice in the farthest corners of known space. — Chuck Wendig

Rejection has value. It teaches us when our work or our skillset is not good enough and must be made better. This is a powerful revelation, like the burning UFO wheel seen by the prophet Ezekiel, or like the McRib sandwich shaped like the Virgin Mary seen by the prophet Steve Jenkins. Rejection refines us. Those who fall prey to its enervating soul-sucking tentacles are doomed. Those who persist past it are survivors. Best ask yourself the question: what kind of writer are you? The kind who survives? Or the kind who gets asphyxiated by the tentacles of woe? — Chuck Wendig

A storyteller makes us feel something. Makes us give a shit when we have no good reason to do so. Fun is not the last stop on the story train. The storyteller is master manipulator. The storyteller is cackling puppetmaster. — Chuck Wendig

Dengar guffaws. "You little scrap-muncher. I was putting away bounties while you were still in your space diapers." "What's it say about you that you're still in your space diapers? — Chuck Wendig

Not it. Her. Give the Falcon some respect, kid. — Chuck Wendig

Good story thrives on protagonists in pain. — Chuck Wendig

Conflict is the food that feeds the reader. It's a spicy hell-broth that nourishes. — Chuck Wendig

Wade drops down off his bed - a bed handmade by a local boy down the road, a real autistic type who doesn't do well with people but can make a set of fresh-cut logs sing beneath saw and sandpaper. He groans and winces. He's old now, and feels the movements of the morning especially keenly; often he feels like a beater car that takes a while to start up. But this, this has him starting up - regardless of the arthritis squeezing his knees and the popcorn crackle of his back. — Chuck Wendig

That's a lesson we could stand to learn. Imperials are just like us. Some of them, at least. It's easy to label those who serve the Galactic Empire as pure evil, all enemy, but truth is, a lot of those who do so were either sold a bill of lies, or forced to by threat of pain or death. — Chuck Wendig

The Empire needed no new weapons. It built the greatest weapon in the history of the galaxy. Twice. It did not need new battle stations. It needed new leadership. — Chuck Wendig

Do not assume tomorrow will come. Car crash, heart attack, panda mauling; no promises that you'll see the day after today. What you do get is today. You're here right now, so don't waste it. Today is always the day you have. Tomorrow is always a day away. Something-something — Chuck Wendig

Because we all end up in the dirt at the end. — Chuck Wendig

Life is equal parts strange and beautiful and horrible, and we're tossed into it without a map or an instruction guide. Poems and stories have a way of helping us make sense of things. — Chuck Wendig

All hail the light, the dark, and the grey. — Chuck Wendig

The Empire was not known for its roomy architecture. It was fond of austere pragmatism (that term, austere pragmatism, or sometimes pragmatic austerity, found its way atop many Imperial brochures and propaganda tracts), and so kept its hallways low and narrow. — Chuck Wendig

The tyrant Palpatine is dead. But the fight isn't over. The war goes on even as the Empire's power diminishes. But we are here for you. Know that wherever you are, no matter how far out into the Outer Rim you dwell, the New Republic is coming to help. Already we've captured dozens of Imperial capital ships and Destroyers - — Chuck Wendig

Science is trumped by ignorance when the ignorant are given a vote. — Chuck Wendig

He wasn't supposed to feel this way. He didn't even want to feel the way he did for the dog, for Creampuff
Goddamnit
Goddamnit
"Goddamnit!" he snarled. Ginger blinked. Incredulous he explained: "They took my dog, Ginger. They stole my terrier." He popped each of his knuckles. "They didn't just abandon me after I got them through, after I kept them alive. They rubbed salt on my wound while they pissed in my eyes. I can't believe they stole my dog."
Coburn grabbed the kid by his all too-clean shirt and shook him like a baby. "Listen. You're going to drive me to go get Creampuff, my terrier ... — Chuck Wendig

This isn't some kind of inspirational story. Some scrappy, ragtag underdog tale, some pugilistic match where we're the goodhearted gladiator who brings down the oppressive regime that put him in the arena. They get to have that narrative. We are the ones who enslaved whole worlds full of alien inhabitants. We are the ones who built something called a Death Star under the leadership of a decrepit old goblin who believed in the 'dark side' of some ancient, insane religion. — Chuck Wendig

The stretching, yearning stalks hiss against the boat's bottom, making a white noise that sounds like pollen coming out of a piss-blizzard. — Chuck Wendig

That is war. It is the placement of ships. It is the advantages and disadvantages of those placements. It's about how you move, how you fire, what weapons you bring. Every piece fits into the larger whole: ammunition in a blaster, blaster in a pilot's hand, pilot inside a starfighter or frigate. Everything is a resource. How do you expend them? In what direction? At a distance, war is a game, however deadly - usher this ship there, that ship here, converge, fire, dominate, defend. But — Chuck Wendig

Writers are goofy-headed moon-units. — Chuck Wendig

Golathan gets a mean look. Vulpine. Vicious. Like he's about to tear a chicken into wet gobbets and red feathers. — Chuck Wendig

You grab the core essence of a true problem and swaddle it in the mad glittery ribbons of fantasy - and therein you find glorious new permutations of conflict. Reality expressed in mind-boggling ways. Reach for fantasy. Find the reality. — Chuck Wendig

A lady should be respectful," is all he manages through gritted teeth. He pitches the towel in the corner.
Miriam snorts. "That's me. My fair fuckin' lady. — Chuck Wendig

Thanks, Darth Obvious. Or is it Emperor Palpable? — Chuck Wendig

You fool," she says. "You eager, egotistical fool. Grand Moff. Pfah. You have so much, so wrong. The Ravager is not the last weapon. Nor do I even control it. There is ... another." His face twitches. "You don't mean ... " "I do mean. He's not dead." "But you said he was." "I lied." She shrugs. "This was ... all his plan. Wasn't it? I should've seen it. I fell for a trap. We all fell for your trap. You betrayer. You foul, wretched betrayer. — Chuck Wendig

My name's Mapo," the boy says. "Mesa Jar Jar. — Chuck Wendig

Once, if you told people you were self-published, they'd look at you like you were a smelly old jobless hobo just come off a dusty boxcar with soupcan shoes and a hat made from a coyote skull. — Chuck Wendig

Storytellers think they're writing for the audience. They're writing, in a way, to hurt the audience. — Chuck Wendig

He's built like a brick shithouse made of a hundred smaller brick shithouses. — Chuck Wendig

Creative agitation can serve you well. Embrace it. Look into that dark hole for answers, not fear. — Chuck Wendig

This is a terrible plan," he says to Han Solo - Solo, who crouches down so as not to be seen. Han Solo, the jerk. The very handsome, very charismatic jerk. "And I hate you very much. — Chuck Wendig

Food for the native Ewoks. — Chuck Wendig

It's probably the only attraction in Shartlesburg, Pennsylvania, a town whose name Miriam finds so funny she, well, nearly sharts every time she hears it. — Chuck Wendig

The shelves had been stripped bare and battered to Hell, as if some super-important Christmas toy release had come and gone and an army of Super-Moms had ripped through the store, buying everything up like an all-consuming void. Didn't hurt that many of the shelves were lined with piles of bones both animal and human. — Chuck Wendig

I could just call you Asshole or Shithead. Because you're kinda both, you ask me. — Chuck Wendig

A good life lesson is not to take strange meat from strange people. "You're — Chuck Wendig

Maybe that's the problem with generations. You start to forget what it was like when you were like them, so they become your enemy and you become theirs and nobody understands each other. Then you die and they become you and finally, finally they understand, but by then it's too late. — Chuck Wendig

Palpatine felt that the universe beyond the edges of our maps was where his power came from. Over the many years he, with our aid, sent men and women beyond known space. They built labs and communication stations on distant moons, asteroids, out there in the wilds. We must follow them. Retreat from the galaxy. Go out beyond the veil of stars. We must seek the source of the dark side like a man looking for a wellspring of water. — Chuck Wendig

Things happen in this life. Sometimes they're good things, and sometimes they're bad things. You have to come to terms with the bad things, especially when you can't change them. — Chuck Wendig

Don't judge me, Captain Judgeypants. I go there for the sandwiches.) — Chuck Wendig

Shut up and write. — Chuck Wendig

That was a pretty good laptop, but Reagan's glad to lose it. Sometimes sacrifices must be made in the search for sweet lulz — Chuck Wendig

The second Death Star is destroyed. The Emperor and his powerful enforcer, Darth Vader, are rumored to be dead. The Galactic Empire is in chaos. Across the galaxy, some systems celebrate, while in others Imperial factions tighten their grip. Optimism and fear reign side by side. And while the Rebel Alliance engages the fractured forces of the Empire, a lone rebel scout uncovers a secret Imperial meeting ... . — Chuck Wendig

Repeat the mantra: Writing is when I make the words. Editing is when I make them not shitty. — Chuck Wendig

The desire for perfection is like a pit of wet coal silt: it will grab your boots like iron hands and never let you go. 13. — Chuck Wendig

No, I just mean ... I'm not into ... this."
"This?" Her scowl deepens and her teeth bare. "Aliens?"
"Women."
"Oh. Oh."
"Yes, oh."
"Oh. — Chuck Wendig

It's happening," he says. "Jakku." "I know." "It's gonna be one helluva battle. It might get bad." "I know that, too." He chews his lip. "It feels weird, doesn't it?" "Not being there, you mean." "Yeah. You, me, Luke. Chewie. The Falcon. Those two walking talking garbage cans. It feels weird we're not part of it." "We've got our own adventure." She pats her belly. "End of an era," he says. "And the start of a new one. — Chuck Wendig

Coffee Fuck you, coffee IS TOO a virtue. Do not deny me this. Do not dare! — Chuck Wendig

THE HOT WATER'S a scorcher and the cold water's like a winter puddle, and the shower offers nothing in between. — Chuck Wendig

Writers are made
forged, really, in a kiln of their own madness and insecurities
over the course of many, many moons. The writer you are when you begin is not the same as the writer you become. — Chuck Wendig

Palpatine has the presence of a collapsing star and the consumptive void that results from it. It draws you in. It takes something from you. It is a flensing, frightening force. But Rax stands tall, — Chuck Wendig

(As are all living things. All are caught in the river of power that is the Force, trapped by its currents. Only those who wield the dark side of the Force are capable of changing those currents; they are riverbreakers. They do not surrender to fate. They are its foes.) The — Chuck Wendig

Personal opinion time: some of the bravest, strangest, coolest stories right now are being told in the young adult space. It's stuff that doesn't fly by tropes or adhere to rules
appropriate, perhaps, since young adults tend to flick cigarettes in the eyes of the rules and don't play by social norms as much as adults do. — Chuck Wendig

If there's one mystical energy that powers the galaxy, it's not the Force. It's pure, unadulterated irony. — Chuck Wendig

All under the pretense of military application."
He pouts. "No pretense about it. Remember, the Internet was a military application. And now look at how it's changed our culture. — Chuck Wendig