Kelsey Provow

“Places are never just places in a piece of writing. If they are, the author has failed. Setting is not inert. It is activated by point of view.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

“That’s why in every scene you write, the protagonist must react in a way the reader can see and understand in the moment. This reaction must be specific, personal, and have an effect on whether the protagonist achieves her goal. What it can’t be is dispassionate objective commentary.”
― Lisa Cron, Wired for Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence

“the clock is ticking, and the world is spinning, and we simply do not have time anymore to think so small.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

“The narrative voice is almost always neutral, meaning that as omniscient narrator, you’re invisible and just reporting the facts. Your characters, on the other hand, are free to express their opinion on whatever they so desire. As long as the reader knows whose head we’re in—that is, who the point-of-view character is—you rarely need a preamble at all.”
― Lisa Cron, Wired for Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence