A Quote by Robert Scholes

Writing is not a mystery. It is a craft like any other, and it can be learned. — © Robert Scholes
Writing is not a mystery. It is a craft like any other, and it can be learned.

Quote Author

Robert Scholes
May 19, 1929 - 2016
Esoteric or inner knowledge is no different from other kinds of human knowledge and ability. It is a mystery for the average person only to the extent that writing is a mystery for those who have not yet learned to write.
No, I don't harbor any mystical ideas about writing, Your Honor, it's work like any other kind of craft; the power of literature, I've always thought, lies in how willful the act of making it is.
One of the things I learnt over the years is that there is a craft to writing, like there is a craft to acting. I hadn't done my apprenticeship as a writer. I did try to be a writer for hire but I'm not any good at it.
We swung over the hills and over the town and back again, and I saw how a man can be master of a craft, and how a craft can be master of an element. I saw the alchemy of perspective reduce my world, and all my other life, to grains in a cup. I learned to watch, to put my trust in other hands than mine. And I learned to wander. I learned what every dreaming child needs to know -- that no horizon is so far that you cannot get above it or beyond it.
Mostly, I would like people to ask other writers about the craft of their writing so we could learn from one another. We ask movie directors why they chose to use certain lights and angles and speeds of film, but most of the time, we ignore the craft of a writer.
I'm always writing. A friend of mine once said, 'You avoid re-writing by writing.' Which is kind of a good point, because re-writing seems to be mostly about craft, and writing is just, like, getting out your passion on a piece of paper.
I've learned things about the craft of writing and about structuring a book and about character development and so on that I've just learned on the fly.
Writing a mystery is more difficult than other kinds of books because a mystery has a certain framework that must be superimposed over the story.
There is nothing I can't do writing in Fantasy. I can have romance, I can have mystery, I can have drama, I can have good characters - I can have everything you can do in any other genre... plus a dragon.
Billy Pilgrim music is very emotional. It's one part the craft we learned from people like the Indigo Girls and R.E.M., and one part the Tom Waits craft, where you're trying to create a moment.
I think it's always good to learn a craft from scratch the real way, so that you've learned it from the basis, the raw bones, and then you have that to fall back on. I personally wouldn't want it any other way.
Writing about real stuff that really concerned me brought out my craft. If you're writing a story about, 'Is Lois Lane gonna figure out that Superman is Clark Kent?' - it's really hard to get involved in that on anything other than a craft level. And I'm not gonna put down craftsmanship; it is a noble enough thing to have made a table that you can pound on and it doesn't fall down. But occasionally, we might have an assignment that engages some other parts of ourselves, and those tend to be the good stories.
Good writing is good writing no matter what genre you're writing in, and I believe that there are only a handful of fundamental craft tools that are essential for any genre-including nonfiction.
Photography is a craft. Anyone can learn a craft with normal intelligence and application. To take it beyond the craft is something else. That's when magic comes in. And I don't know that there's any explanation for that.
In America, where writers are preoccupied with the craft of writing, I always try to introduce this concept of the badly written good story. Turning the hierarchy around and putting passion on top and not craft, because when you just focus on craft, you can write something that is very sterile.
I've never really lived with somebody. Only for very brief periods. I learned I'm not a good roommate. I'm better off when we visit each other. I like the mystery.
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