Story Writing Quotes

And it's just dawned on me that I might be the author of my own story, but so is everyone else the author of their own stories, and sometimes, like now, there's no overlap.

Come with me to the mountains. Every rock there tells a story.

Those who suffer much, have much to say.

Lailah Gifty Akita

I'll call any length of fiction a story, whether it be a novel or a shorter piece, and I'll call anything a story in which specific characters and events influence each other to form a meaningful narrative. I find that most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one. Then they find themselves writing a sketch with an essay woven through it, or an essay with a sketch woven through it, or an editorial with a character in it, or a case history with a moral, or some other mongrel thing. When they realize that they aren't writing stories, they decide that the remedy for this is to learn something that they refer to as "the technique of the short story" or "the technique of the novel." Technique in the minds of many is something rigid, something like a formula that you impose on the material; but in the best stories it is something organic, something that grows out of the material, and this being the case, it is different for every story of any account that has ever been written.

Flannery O'Connor

The story we write today will support the next generation.

Lailah Gifty Akita

Don’t interrupt when your characters take a flight of their own.

Cliches are the viruses that infect your writing with diseases.

If you think there is no time to write now, there would never be.

If certain aspect needs to be inconsistent, it must better be consistently inconsistent throughout the story.

A writer gets to live yet another life every time she creates a new story.

Writing a story is like going on a date—you will spoil it if you aren't living in the moment.

Tell a story in lesser and simpler words.

Don’t break the rules when you haven’t fully figured them out yet.

Dreams are good at playing with your memory. They love leaving no trace behind and hate to show up once again in the morning.

The good writing ideas don’t have to be about political turmoil, mass killings, capitalism, racism, injustice, etc. Find that one idea that has deep roots in your heart.

Create a world in front of your readers where they can taste, smell, touch, hear, see, and move. Else they are likely going to move on to another book.

A writer can do without food for a few hours, but not without the sight of books.

Turn those deep feelings and obsessions of your heart into captivating pieces of literature.

Ideas either age like fine wine or rot like potatoes over time.

If you are a singer, you must sing. If you are a dancer, you must dance. If you are a writer, you must write. Don’t suffocate your heart.

As you become a better writer, the writing becomes more difficult. You toil harder to tell a story in a lesser number of words.

Be a good reader first, if you wish to become a good writer.

Can you imagine a world without books to read?

Lailah Gifty Akita