"If you go too far in your writing, it is easy to pull back in the editing. But if you don't go far enough, it can be much harder to push it out later. Daring is the X factor in creativity." ~The Writer's Studio
"One of the biggest mistakes a writer can make when just starting out is to mix up the separate elements of the process." ~TWS
"Stories like flowers take time to grow. They only come into full bloom at the end of the process." ~The Writer's Studio
"When it comes to writing a novel or screenplay mistakes and difficulties often turn out to be opportunities. The point is you can’t necessarily go with your first option." ~The Writers' Studio
"When it comes to writing good there is only one rule - what works works." ~The Writers' Studio
"When you are writing a first draft, the most important thing is to get it written. It doesn’t have to be perfect and it doesn’t matter how you do it." ~The Writers' Studio
"Writers are sensitive people and if you want to write, it will most likely to stir up certain fears. Dealing with one's fears is part of the process." ~TWS
"Writing a first draft is an act of discovery where you need to learn to mine your imagination. You can refine what comes out later." ~TWS
"Writing a novel or screenplay is a four part process – planning, writing, re-writing and editing."
"Writing a novel or screen play is an adventure and an act of discovery. You can't control the process. Your stories take you to places you never realised you needed to go. And often what you didn't know at the start turns out to be the best parts of your story." ~The Writer's Studio
"Writing is a confidence game. There is no failure just a big field to wander in." ~TWS
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SUB-QUOTES:
"Blood, sweat and tears help mould the story." ~Mandy Moo
"The art of letting go should never be underestimated...it is in this space creativity flows as obstacles are removed. Dare I say fear and writer's block are one of the same?" ~Mandy Moo
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IN ORDER OF THINGS:
I
"The first step when creating a story is to make your readers care for your main character. Then get them into as much trouble as you possibly can." ~TWS
“That’s how stories happen — with a turning point, an unexpected twist. There’s only one kind of happiness, but misfortune comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s like Tolstoy said, Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.” ~Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
‘Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, make a good tale...’
From The Hobbit by J. R. Tolkein
II
"Writing is an act of faith. Make this a general rule when writing your first draft, everything your internal critic says is irrelevant at this stage." ~TWS
“I have spent a good many years since―too many, I think―being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that's all.” ~Stephen King
III
"Much of the craft of writing is about creating a moving experience for your reader. It is all about making the reader want to keep turning the pages. This doesn’t just happen by accident." ~TWS
“Nobody reads a book to get to the middle.” ~Mickey Spillane
IV
"In the end we only regret the chances we never took, the relationships we were afraid to have and the decisions we took to long to make." ~TWS
"Don't go to the grave with your story unsung in your heart." ~Anon
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” ~Maya Angelou
“Stories, like people and butterflies and songbirds' eggs and human hearts and dreams, are also fragile things, made up of nothing stronger or more lasting than twenty-six letters and a handful of punctuation marks. Or they are words on the air, composed of sounds and ideas-abstract, invisible, gone once they've been spoken-and what could be more frail than that? But some stories, small, simple ones about setting out on adventures or people doing wonders, tales of miracles and monsters, have outlasted all the people who told them, and some of them have outlasted the lands in which they were created.” ~Neil Gaiman
V
"If you want to write a novel or screenplay you need to take your main character on a journey where they are placed under extreme pressure and change as a result. This is the role of structure and this is what will evoke an emotional response in your readers." ~TWS
“You take people, you put them on a journey, you give them peril, you find out who they really are.” ~Joss Whedon
VI
"Every character needs to think they are the main character of the story. For them to come to life on the page they need to be given a life of their own outside the story." ~TWS
“You can never know enough about your characters” ~W. Somerset Maugham
“It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.” ~William Faulkner
VII
"It is not as though there are a very small percentage of people born with talent and the rest of us might as well give up. Writing is an art and a craft that takes time to master." ~TWS
“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.” ~Stephen King
VIII
"When you are writing a first draft you are just creating the marble. Just get something down so you have something to re-write and edit later." ~TWS
"The angel was always in the marble." ~Michelangelo
IX
"Many people are of the opinion that writers are born not made and only a select few have the talent required to write worthwhile stories. While everyone has very different skills, we believe that is not necessarily the case. In fact, we see people dramatically improve their writing and story telling ability by learning the craft, applying the tools and techniques and doing the work." ~TWS
"I don't think that talent or gift, if such things exist, has anything to do with what the final receipts will be. My notion is that anyone who speaks, by reason of that speech, has prospects of achieving important imaginative writing. I see the notion of talent as quite irrelevant. I see instead old-fashioned notions of perseverance, application and industry... It comes down in every instance to this dualism between what one wants and what one may be afraid to have." ~Gordon Lish
"A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit." ~Richard Bach
X
"The first draft is about finding the story and character journey. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Many writers when they are just starting out make the mistake of comparing their first drafts to a completed, edited and published book. ...... Writing a novel or screenplay is a refiners craft and requires that you have a process that keeps you on track. When you write your first draft allow yourself to make mistakes and try things." ~TWS
"The first draft is just telling yourself a story." ~Terry Prachett, Freedom With Writing
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"People tend to look at successful writers, writers who are getting their books published and maybe even doing well financially, and think that they sit down at their desks every morning feeling like a million dollars, feeling great about who they are and how much talent they have and what a great story they have to tell; that they take in a few deep breaths, push back their sleeves, roll their necks a few times to get all the cricks out, and dive in, typing fully formed passages as fast as a court reporter. ..... But this is just the fantasy of the uninitiated. I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we don’t like her very much. Very few writers know what they’re saying until they’ve done it." ~Anne Lamott
XI
"Writing is a mood changing activity. Most likely you will rarely feel like writing. The key thing is to just sit down and do the work regardless of how you feel. When you finish you will be so glad you did. The act of writing has its own reward." ~TWS
“One must be pitiless about this matter of mood. In a sense writing will create the mood. Generally I've found this to be true. I have forced myself to begin writing when I've been utterly exhausted, when I've felt my soul as thin as a playing card, when nothing has seemed worth enduring for another five minutes... and somehow the activity of writing changes everything.” Joyce Carol Oates
"Writing is medicine. It is an appropriate antidote to injury. It is an appropriate companion for any difficult change." ~Julia Cameron
XII
"One of the great pleasures of reading a good novel or watching a great film is that you get to enter the dreamworld of the story. It is the same when you write your novel or screenplay, particularly if you write most days, the dream of your story becomes alive in your imagination and your story starts to write itself." ~TWS
“We read five words on the first page of a really good novel and we begin to forget we are reading printed words on a page; we begin to see images - a dog hunting through garbage cans, a plane circling above Alaskan mountains, an old lady furtively licking her napkin at a party. We slip into a dream, forgetting the room we're sitting in, forgetting it's lunchtime or time to go to work.”John Gardner
"Starting a novel is opening a door on a misty landscape; you can still see very little but you can smell the earth and feel the wind blowing." ~Iris Murdoch
XIII
"Writing is all about getting the words out of your head and onto the page and shaping them in a way that resonates with your readers. The words create a deep communication between you and your reader." ~TWS
“Whether you’re keeping a journal or writing as a meditation, it’s the same thing. What’s important is that you’re having a relationship with your mind.” ~Natalie Goldberg
"You should write because you love the shape of the stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page." ~Annie Proulx
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