Frankisms

“The material of literary talent is words; the material of story talent is life itself. — Robert McKee”

writing

“The mind takes 48 percent longer to understand a negated statement. — Sandra Glahn, editor in chief of Kindred Spirit magazine”

writing

“The modern reader, brought up on movies and television, wants highly visual stories, not narrative summaries. — Theodore A. Rees Cheney”

writing

“The more honestly you write, the closer you come to knowing who you really are. — Cecil Murphey”

writing

“The more people affected by the threat the protagonist faces, the higher the stakes. — Carole Bugge”

writing

“The more that is at stake for your character, the more she feels about the things that are happening around her. — Cheryl St.John”

writing

“The more you know about your tools, the better you’ll be able to use them. — Elizabeth George”

writing

“The more you worry about grammar, the less you’re going to write. — Joel Saltzman”

writing

“The more you write, the better you’re going to get at it. — Harlan Coben”

writing

“The more you’re willing to work and rework your material—the better it gets. — Joel Saltzman”

writing

“The most common error a person makes while using the English language is when they use a plural pronoun with a singular antecedent. — Sandra Glahn, editor in chief of Kindred Spirit magazine”

writing

“The most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar; familiar things new. — William Makepeace Thackeray”

writing

“The most productive writers are those who combine a sense of realism about the tough odds they face with a belief that such odds can be overcome with enough effort. — Susan K. Perry”

writing

“The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do. — Thomas Jefferson”

writing

“The one thing that makes a person a writer is writing. Butt in chair. Every day. No excuses. Ever. — Lisa Cron”

writing

“The only failure in writing is when you stop doing it. Then you fail yourself. — Natalie Goldberg”

writing

“The only reason my contract file is thicker than my rejection file is because contracts are twenty pages long. — Cheryl St.John”

writing

“The only thing that will make your fiction endure will be excellent characters. — Jeff Gerke”

writing

“The only way you can develop your voice is by writing. — DiAnn Mills”

writing

“The opening line is the most important thing on the page. — Terry Burns”

writing

“The past tense often flows more easily than the every-moment-is-now nature of present tense. — Laurie Alberts”

writing

“The pen and the sword make an unbeatable combination. — Sandra Glahn, editor in chief of Kindred Spirit magazine”

writing

“The problem is that there are no good maps for the journey of a writer; each one goes it alone. — Natalie Goldberg”

writing

“The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business. — John Steinbeck”

writing

“The proper definition of “Man” is an animal who writes letters. — Lewis Carroll”

writing

“The reader must know what’s going on immediately, from the very first words on the page. — Syd Field”

writing

“The reader must see the action as if he or she were seeing it on the screen. — Syd Field”

writing

“The reader turns the page because he wants to know what’s going to happen next. — Cheryl St.John”

writing

“The reader will assume the opening scene is typical of the whole book. — Persia Woolley”

writing

“The real world is a clinic for writers who pay attention and break down what they see around them. — Larry Brooks”

writing

“The really exciting part about creating characters is that you can manipulate their lives in order to tell the story you want to tell. — Cheryl St.John”

writing

“The role of the writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say. — Anaïs Nin”

writing

“The situation must be so important to the characters that it’s intolerable unless they do something. — Cheryl St.John”

writing

“The solution, once revealed, must seem to be inevitable. — Raymond Chandler”

writing

“The story gets its biggest boost from the characters who stand in the protagonist’s way. — Dara Marks”

writing

“The stronger your character’s goal and the stronger the danger that threatens it, the stronger your story is. — Cheryl St.John”

writing

“The supposition of danger is always exciting. It is a kind of yeast that will ferment at any time. — Constantin Stanislavski”

writing

“The tension must continue to escalate, scene by scene, until it reaches a climax after which nothing is ever the same again. — Steven James”

writing

“The theme of the book is the message left to the reader once the story ends. — Terri S. Lesesne”

writing

“The thing that separates writers who break through from those who don’t is perseverance, mixed with the wholehearted desire of a zealot to zero in on what isn’t working and fix it. — Lisa Cron, long-time consultant and agent”

writing