Immediate Fiction Quotes

“Anytime you don’t have a picture in your head, you’re in trouble or will be soon.”
― Jerry Cleaver, Immediate Fiction: A Complete Writing Course

“And faster writing is better writing.”
― Jerry Cleaver, Immediate Fiction: A Complete Writing Course

“Write what you know? No. Write what you can imagine. After all, imagining is knowing—a special kind of knowing that can reveal as much or more truth than our real experience.”
― Jerry Cleaver, Immediate Fiction: A Complete Writing Course

“Identification is the goal not only of every story but of every life. It's our deepest social need.”
― Jerry Cleaver, Immediate Fiction: A Complete Writing Course

“A good story cannot be denied. Like falling in love, it's irresistible. It hits you before you have time to think. It touches your heart before it reaches your head.”
― Jerry Cleaver, Immediate Fiction: A Complete Writing Course

“Actually, we are the worst for not letting go, for not valuing emptiness, randomness, for not seeing the value of not knowing.”
― Jerry Cleaver, Immediate Fiction: A Complete Writing Course

“In this game, mistakes and errors are good. They help us uncover new relationships.”
― Jerry Cleaver, Immediate Fiction: A Complete Writing Course

“Your job is to learn to create drama. Once you can do that, you can do anything.”
― Jerry Cleaver, Immediate Fiction: A Complete Writing Course

“A complete story is the most fulfilling, because it has the shape of our most meaningful experience. Whether”
― Jerry Cleaver, Immediate Fiction: A Complete Writing Course

“A complete story is the most fulfilling, because”
― Jerry Cleaver, Immediate Fiction: A Complete Writing Course

“Writing compelling stories goes against the grain of all our socialized, civilized training. Creating fiction is an antisocial act. You, the author, are the one who must make all the trouble. And you must be merciless if you are going to incite your characters to the kind of action that is revealing and dramatic. This will be difficult when the time comes to pressure, to assault, to attack your character, a character that you have put your heart into creating and are attached to. But you must, because the more pressure you put on your character, the more he must use himself, reveal himself, so that we are able to experience him.”
― Jerry Cleaver, Immediate Fiction: A Complete Writing Course

“stories aren’t ideas. They’re not concepts or definitions. They’re experience.”
― Jerry Cleaver, Immediate Fiction: A Complete Writing Course