A Quote by Edward Joseph Harrington O'Brien

If you do not have an alert and curious interest in character and dramatic situation, if you have no visual imagination and are unable to distinguish between honest emotional reactions and sentimental approaches to life, you will never write a competent short story.

Edward Joseph Harrington O'Brien

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Alert Approaches Between Character Competent Curious Distinguish Dramatic Emotional Emotional Reactions Honest Imagination Interest Life Never Reactions Sentimental Short Short Story Situation Story Unable Visual Will Write

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Edward Joseph Harrington O'Brien
Author
1890 - 1941

Once we remember that all that takes place during the first days of life on the emotional level shapes the patterns of all future reactions , we cannot but wonder why such a torture has been inflicted on the child. How could a being who has been aggressed in this way, while totally helpless, develop into a relaxed, loving, trusting person? Indeed, he will always never be able to trust anyone in life. He will always be on the defensive, unable to open up to others and to life.

Frederick Leboyer

It's often hard to determine, especially in early drafts, whether or not a story has a bona fide complication. Remember this: A complication must either illuminate, thwart, or alter what the character wants. A good complication puts emotional pressure on a character, promoting that character not only to act, but to act with purpose.If the circumstance does none of these things, then it's not a complication at all - it's a situation. This situation, or setup, might be interesting or even astonishing, but it gives the story no point of departure.

Monica Wood

So many people can now write competent stories that the short story is in danger of dying of competence.

Flannery O'Connor

I am unable to distinguish between the feeling I have for life and my way of expressing it.

Henri Matisse

I love stories. But I don't distinguish so much between a short story and a novel. Personally, when I sit down to read a novel or a Chekhov story, I'm seeking the same thing: I'm seeking that same rich portrayal of life in words.

Jhumpa Lahiri

From this day forward, Flight Control will be known by two words: "Tough" and "Competent." Tough means we are forever accountable for what we do or what we fail to do. We will never again compromise our responsibilities. Every time we walk into Mission Control we will know what we stand for. Competent means we will never take anything for granted. We will never be found short in our knowledge and in our skills.

Gene Kranz

Many people do not distinguish between something that happens to them and their reaction to it. Yet it isn't the event or situation that holds the emotional charge; it's our beliefs that create our response.

Chip Conley

There are, after all, approaches to be made other than the dependable routes that massage sentimental expectations and provide easy opportunities for emotional identification.

Peter Greenaway

Never forget that the truest luxury is imagination, and that being a writer gives you the leeway to exploit all of the imagination's curious intricacies, to be what you were, what you are, what you will be, and what everyone else is or was or will be, too.

Andrew Solomon

You get more negative reactions than positive reactions as you go through life, and the big lesson is nobody counts you out but yourself...I never have; I never will.

Buddy Ebsen

It's difficult to write a really good short story because it must be a complete and finished reflection of life with only a few words to use as tools. There isn't time for bad writing in a short story.

Edna Ferber

I'll give you the sole secret of short-story writing, and here it is: Rule 1. Write stories that please yourself. There is no rule 2. The technical points you can get from Bliss Perry. If you can't write a story that pleases yourself, you will never please the public. But in writing the story forget the public.

O. Henry

Maybe I'm perverse, but the question of "rooting" for a character, or setting out to write a character for whom other people will root, has never had anything to do with why I read or write fiction. As long as the writing and story remain alive, intense, invigorating, provoking, the characters can be as demonic or saintly as the author wants.

James Lasdun

It's all about creating a back story for the character and developing emotional responses that are true to life in relation to the character. It isn't necessary to live a tragic life to create from that place.

Corin Nemec

Every work [of literature] has both a situation and a story. The situation is the context or circumstance, sometimes the plot; the story is the emotional experience that preoccupies the writer: the insight, the wisdom, the thing one has come to say

Vivian Gornick

I conceive that the right way to write a story for boys is to write so that it will not only interest boys but strongly interest any man who has ever been a boy. That immensely enlarges the audience.

Mark Twain

A Quote by Edward Joseph Harrington O'Brien

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