A Quote by John McNally

If you want to be a fiction writer, you need to start reading like a fiction writer. To do so, you need to learn about craft so that the next time you pick up a contemporary short story, you're reading it not as an abstraction floating in formaldehyde, existing simply for the theorist's dull scalpel to saw on, but as a concrete thing constructed out of words and shaped by syntax, brought to life by a writer who made several thousand choices, some large, some small, before letting that imperfect beauty, the story, walk on its own two feet.

John McNally

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About Abstraction Beauty Before Brought Choices Concrete Constructed Contemporary Craft Dull Existing Feet Fiction Fiction Writer Floating Imperfect Large Learn Letting Life Like Made Need Next Next Time Out Own Perfect Beauty Pick Reading Saw Scalpel Several Shaped Short Short Story Simply Small Some Start Story Syntax Thing Thousand Time Two Up Walk Want Words Writer

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John McNally
American - Footballer
November 27, 1903 - November 28, 1985

On a more technical level, a story takes a lot of words. And to generate words and phrases and images and so on, that will compel the reader to continue reading - that stand a chance of really grabbing a reader - the writer has to work out of a place of, let's say, familiarity and affection. The matrix of the story has to be made out of stuff the writer really knows about and likes. The writer can't be stretching and (purely) inventing all the time. Well, I can't, anyway.

George Saunders

Two kinds of reading can be distinguished. I call them reading like a reader and reading like a writer ... when you read like a reader, you identify with the characters in the story. The story is what you learn about. When you read like a writer, you identify with the author and learn about writing.

Frank Smith

I think the biggest advice I can offer is don't just pick one story and stop, write as much as you can, as many stories as you can. The best thing about being a writer is, a writer's craft is nearly perfect because a writer can go anywhere and do his craft.

Dwayne McDuffie

Non-fiction is a big responsibility. Rationality. Facts. The urgent need to reflect some small aspect of reality. But fiction is a private autism, a self-referential world in which the writer is omnipotent. Gravity, taxes, and death are mere options, subject to the writer's fancy.

Katherine Dunn

I never really wanted to be a writer. I know it sounds strange, but I honestly believe that I didn't pick the story; the story has picked me. I've written absolutely no fiction before 'The Immortals of Meluha.' Not even a short story in school - absolutely nothing.

Amish Tripathi

No one can teach writing, but classes may stimulate the urge to write. If you are born a writer, you will inevitably and helplessly write. A born writer has self-knowledge. Read, read, read. And if you are a fiction writer, don't confine yourself to reading fiction. Every writer is first a wide reader.

Cynthia Ozick

No one can teach writing, but classes may stimulate the urge to write. If you are born a writer, you will inevitably and helplessly write. A born writer has self-knowledge. Read, read, read. And if you are a fiction writer, dont confine yourself to reading fiction. Every writer is first a wide reader.

Cynthia Ozick

As a reader, when the writer gets sentimental, you drift, because there's something fishy going on there. You recognize a moment that's largely about the writer and the writer's own need to believe in something that might not in fact exist. As a reader, you think, 'Where did the story go? Where did the person I'm reading about go?'

Adrian Nicole LeBlanc

From a really young age, I was reading like a writer. I was reading for the deep understanding of the literature; not simply to hear the story but to understand how the author got the story on the page.

Jacqueline Woodson

I definitely want to act and I want to sing. If those two fall through, I want to become a writer, probably, like a songwriter for other people, or a novel writer. I write a lot, and I read a lot. I like reading fiction.

Cassie Steele

As a fiction writer, of course, you need to take some leeway with certain aspects of history to make the story work.

Joseph Boyden

Creative non-fiction is such a liberating genre because it allows the non-fiction writer, whether he or she be journalist or essayist, to use all of the techniques of the fiction writer and all of the ideas, creative approaches, that fiction writers get a chance to use, but they have to use it in a true story.

Lee Gutkind

For a short-story writer, a story is the combination of what the writer supposed the story would likely be about - plus what actually turned up in the course of writing.

Carol Bly

In a sense, journalism can be both helpful and detrimental to a writer of fiction because the kind of writing you need to do as a journalist is so different. It has to be clear, unambiguous, concise, and as a writer often you are trying to do things that are more ambiguous. I find that writing fiction is often an antidote to reading and writing too much journalism.

Aravind Adiga

Learn a lot about the world and finish things, even if it is just a short story. Finish it before you start something else. Finish it before you start rewriting it. That's really important. It's to find out if you're going to be a writer or not, because that's one of the most important lessons. Most, maybe 90% of people, will start writing and never finish what they started. If you want to be a writer that's the hardest and most important lesson: Finish it. Then go back to fix it.

Tad Williams

I think what people really want is fiction that in some tiny way makes their life more meaningful and makes the world seem like a richer place. The world is awfully short on joy and richness, and I think to some extent it’s the fiction writer’s job to salvage some of that and to give it to us in ways that we can believe in.

Wells Tower

A Quote by John McNally

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