A writer may have a message, an emotion, a philosophy to impart in his fiction, and these are the most marvelous kind of serendipity. But his first job is to entertain. To inform comes second. To entertain comes first.
HARLAN ELLISON
Learn to write dialogue. This involves more than I can discuss here, but do it. Read the writers of great prose dialogue–people like Robert Stone and Joan Didion. Compression, saying as little as possible, making everything carry much more than is actually said. Conflict. Dialogue as part of an ongoing world, not just voices in a dark room. Never say the obvious. Skip the meet and greet.
JANET FITCH
If you get stuck, get away from your desk. Take a walk, take a bath, go to sleep, make a pie, draw, listen to music, meditate, exercise; whatever you do, don't just stick there scowling at the problem. But don't make telephone calls or go to a party; if you do, other people's words will pour in where your lost words should be. Open a gap for them, create a space. Be patient.
HILARY MANTEL
There are no rules. If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you do it, too? No. There are no rules except the ones you learned during your Show and Tell days. Have fun. If they don’t want to be friends with you, they’re not worth being friends with. Most of all, just be yourself.
COLSON WHITEHEAD
A nonfiction book, especially if it’s on a complicated subject, must have a dramatic structure. If you’re writing a novel, the author has the advantage over the reader because the reader doesn’t know whether this figure’s going to be a hero or a villain, so you can do what you want with him. But if you’re writing a nonfiction work about famous and important people and about the major events in history, people know how it turned out. They know that Michelangelo was a great painter and that Picasso was going to one of the most famous painters in the world and so on. So the writer has to create what I would call a willing suspension of knowledge and make a drama of the facts of the past.
DANIEL BOORSTIN
Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.
ANNE RICE
Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Dreaming is the day job of novelists, but sharing our dreams is a still more important task for us. We cannot be novelists without this sense of sharing something.
HARUKI MURAKAMI
Don’t tell anybody what your book is about and don’t show it until it’s finished. It’s not that anybody will steal your idea but that all the energy that goes into the writing of your story will be dissipated.
DAVID WALLECHINSKY
A work of fiction should be, for its author, a journey into the unknown, and the prose should convey the difficulties of the journey.
ANTHONY BURGESS
Writerly wisdom of the ages collected by the author of Advice To Writers, The Big Book of Irony, and The Portable Curmudgeon.
Copyright © Jon Winokur 2019-2026. All rights reserved. Website by Wei-Haas Creative.
The trademark AdviceToWriters® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.