Writing Fiction Quotes

“Most writing is done between the mind and the hand, not between the hand and the page.”
― Janet Burroway, Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft

“The mystique and the false glamour of the writing profession grow partly out of a mistaken belief that people who can express profound ideas and emotions have ideas and emotions more profound than the rest of us. It isn't so. The ability to express is a special gift with a special craft to support it and is spread fairly equally among the profound, the shallow, and the mediocre.”
― Janet Burroway, Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft

“Don't dread. Do.”
― Janet Burroway, Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft

“Literature offers us feelings for which we do not have to pay. It allows us to love, condemn, condone, hope, dread, and hate without any of the risks those feelings ordinarily involve; for even good feelings—intimacy, power, speed, drunkenness, passion—have consequences, and powerful feelings may risk powerful consequences”
― Janet Burroway, Writing Fiction, Tenth Edition: A Guide to Narrative Craft

“Specific, definite, concrete, particular details—these are the life of fiction. Details (as every good liar knows) are the stuff of persuasiveness.”
― Janet Burroway, Writing Fiction, Tenth Edition: A Guide to Narrative Craft

“diaphragm, heavy and unassailable by digestive”
― Janet Burroway, Writing Fiction, Tenth Edition: A Guide to Narrative Craft