500 Ways to Be a Better Writer Quotes

“Repeat the mantra: Writing is when I make the words. Editing is when I make them not shitty.”
― Chuck Wendig, 500 Ways to Be a Better Writer

“Every story's trying to say something. It's trying to beam an idea, a message, into the minds of the readers. In this way, every story is an argument. It's the writer making a case.”
― Chuck Wendig, 500 Ways to Be a Better Writer

“The auteur theory suggests that, throughout an author's body of work one can find consistent themes -- and, studying a number of authors, you'll find this to be true. (Look no further than James Joyce in this respect, where he courts themes exploring the everyday heroism of the common man competing against the paralysis of the same.) In this way theme is sometimes an obsession, the author compelled to explore certain aspects and arguments without ever really meaning to -- theme then needn't be decided upon, nor must it be constrained to a single narrative. Theme is bigger, bolder, madder than all that. Sometimes theme is who we really are as writers. 14.”
― Chuck Wendig, 500 Ways to Be a Better Writer

“Coffee Fuck you, coffee IS TOO a virtue. Do not deny me this. Do not dare!”
― Chuck Wendig, 500 Ways to Be a Better Writer

“The story goes that every Jedi constructs his own lightsaber, and every penmonkey constructs his own pen.”
― Chuck Wendig, 500 Ways to Be a Better Writer

“If you're being skewered by a unicorn, the secret is: tell the unicorn he doesn't exist. If you do that, he'll disappear in a puff of Lucky Charms cereal. That's true. That's fact. Same thing goes for writer's block.”
― Chuck Wendig, 500 Ways to Be a Better Writer

“The desire for perfection is like a pit of wet coal silt: it will grab your boots like iron hands and never let you go. 13.”
― Chuck Wendig, 500 Ways to Be a Better Writer

“Writers and actors have some creative ground in common, and so when you're writing a scene and hoping to convey a mood it's not the worst idea to try to put that mood into your headspace -- feel it, if only a little. I'm not saying you have to kill a kitten or punch your mother to feel something -- I just mean, stir up the memory of certain emotions if not the emotion itself. Same way an actor might think about a sad moment to conjure tears on-camera. 23.”
― Chuck Wendig, 500 Ways to Be a Better Writer

“Mood is painted in the margins: you create the image by negative space, dancing around it without ever saying it. 9.”
― Chuck Wendig, 500 Ways to Be a Better Writer

“The ending lights up like Baghdad during the war and your jaw drops and the curtains close and you feel a part of something much bigger and much weirder than yourself -- the mighty power of storytelling, a power embodied by the conclusion of narrative. The ending to any story is a potent moment, a super-charged dose of a story's capability to make you feel something and to leave you reeling, wondering, feeling.”
― Chuck Wendig, 500 Ways to Be a Better Writer

“The best thing you can say about an ending is that it made you happy you read it, but sad that it's over. It really is that simple. 23.”
― Chuck Wendig, 500 Ways to Be a Better Writer

“Not every writer needs a plan, but in my experience many believe they don't need a plan when, frankly, they do. I was that kind of writer: I thought, ha ha ha, stupid people saying I should outline or do preparatory work, those silly assholes with their misunderstanding of my genius. If you find you're lost in the woods of your own fiction and feel like giving up -- it might be because you have no plan. You can retrofit one. Doing that will help put you back on track and give your current writing a jolt of needed organization.”
― Chuck Wendig, 500 Ways to Be a Better Writer

“The times we live in often dictate the type of entertainment we seek -- and we're starting to slide once more into a very dark and scary corner of American life.”
― Chuck Wendig, 500 Ways to Be a Better Writer

“Learn from your existence and borrow things from your day to day. Have adventures. Take risks. Put yourself into your fiction. Because life offers a kind of writing advice you just can't read about -- it's something only you can experience.”
― Chuck Wendig, 500 Ways to Be a Better Writer

“Writers are goofy-headed moon-units.”
― Chuck Wendig, 500 Ways to Be a Better Writer

“Do that and the carbs will only drag you down, make you mentally foggy. Stick with protein while writing. By the way, bacon is protein. Just saying.”
― Chuck Wendig, 500 Ways to Be a Better Writer