Top 25 Quotes & Sayings by Don Roff

If you focus on the humanity of your stories, your characters, then the horror will be stronger, scarier. Without the humanity, the horror becomes nothing more than a tawdry parlor trick. All flash and no magic, and worst of all, no heart.

Writing a story, regardless of length, begins always with a single word.

Fear and self-doubt are the deadly enemies of creativity. Don’t invite either into your mind.

A migraine is the cockblock of writing.

But people in a small town tend to do a lot of talking, even when they don’t know what they’re talking about.

Regarding the creative: never assume you're the master, only the student. Your audience will determine if you're masterful.

When you're writing what you love, it's the most fun you can have with your clothing still on, unless of course, you write naked.

If you treat your characters like people, they'll reward you by being fully developed individuals.

Write about the thing that scares you most or your most private confession and you'll never have a problem coming up with decent fiction.

Nothing says work efficiency like panic mode.

The recipe for great art has always been misery and a good bowel movement.

When you print out your manuscript and read it, marking up with a pen, it sometimes feels like a criminal returning to the scene of a crime.

A writer always writes.

Authors must spend months, years making fantasy believable in a single work while reality runs rampant and complete chaos elsewhere.

It’s hard to land a devastating jab/cross/hook/uppercut combo to your reader’s imagination when you’re telegraphing your punches.

Always work with/surround yourself with people who help make you a better version of you. Kindly avoid those who don't.

Any conversation including the mention of Roald Dahl, Ray Bradbury, or Emily Dickinson is one worth getting into or at least eavesdropping.

You can be a writer who doesnt read everyday. But youre not fooling anyone. It shows, rather embarrassingly, in your work.

Nothing's a better cure for writer's block than to eat ice cream right out of the carton.

It's my belief that people enter your life at exactly the right time.

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

Always mystify, torture, mislead, and surprise the audience as much as possible.

Love it when a compelling new character kicks open your mental door, tracks mud across your brain, and props their feet up on your cerebrum.

A day of bad writing is always better than a day of no writing.

There is no right or wrong way to write a novel. Each journey is different for every individual work and for every writer. The first error is never to begin; the second is never to finish.