See enough and write it down, I tell myself, and then some morning when the world seems drained of wonder, some day when I am only going through the motions of doing what I am supposed to do on that bankrupt morning I will simply open my notebook and there it will all be, a forgotten account with accumulated interest, paid passage back to the world out there.
JOAN DIDION
The process of writing a novel begins with a pang, a moment of recognition, and a situation, a character, or something you read in a paper, that seems to go off, like a solar flare inside your head. And you think, “I could write a novel about this.”
MARTIN AMIS
Now you may ask, what if my characters won't talk to me? What if they won't even visit? The only answer is to think and think some more, and then go out and read and look and listen some more. Do not sit and mope. Do not sigh. Do not throw up your hands and give up on the whole project. Do not go back to the drawing board. There is nothing more depressing than an empty drawing board. No, go back to the world, which is where all characters originally come from.
ALLEGRA GOODMAN
My prescription for writer’s block is to face the fact that there is no such thing. It’s an invented condition, a literary version of the judicial “abuse excuse.” Writing well is difficult, but one can always write something. And then, with a lot of work, make it better. It’s a question of having enough will and ambition, not of hoping to evade this mysterious hysteria people are always talking about.
THOMAS MALLON
1) There should be a clean clear surface with much disturbance below.
2) An anagogical level.
3) Sentences that can stand strikingly alone.
4) An animal within to give its blessing.
5) Interior voices which are or become wildly erratically exterior.
6) A novel wants to befriend you, a short story almost never.
7) Control is necessary throughout. Constraints allow the short story to thrive.
8) The story’s effect should utterly transcend the naturalness and accessibility of its situation and language.
9) A certain coldness is required in execution. It is not a form that gives itself to consolation but if consolation is offered it should come from an unexpected quarter.
JOY WILLIAMS
Got a call from a little film company that was doing the packaging for Warner Brothers on Babylon 5, which I’d worked on. I did a very long, very interesting on-camera interview about the making of the show early on, when the creator of the series, Joe Straczynski, hired me. A young woman called and said they wanted to use it on the DVD.
“That can that be arranged,” I said. “All you have to do is pay me.”
“Well,” she said, “everybody else is doing it for nothing.”
“Everybody else may be, but I'm not,” I said. “By what right would you call and ask me to work for nothing? Do you get a paycheck?”
“Well, yes…but it would be good publicity…”
“Does your boss get a paycheck? Do you pay the cameraman? Do you pay the cutters? Do you pay the Teamsters when they shlep your stuff on trucks? Would you go to a gas station and ask for free gas? Would you go to the doctor and have them take out your spleen for nothing? How dare you call and want me to work for the publicity! Tell that to someone who’s just fallen off the turnip truck. There’s no publicity value in my interview being on your DVD. If you sell 2,000, will people say, ‘Oh, I really like the way the guy gave that interview. I wonder if he's ever written a book’? The only value for me is if you cross my palm with silver.”
“Well alright, thank you,” she said, and hung up.
These people want everything for nothing. They wouldn't go five seconds without being paid and they bitch because they want more. These people are so used to getting it for nothing they don't even send you a copy of the DVD. You call to ask where it is and they tell you to go to the store and buy it. And I should do a freebie for Warner Brothers?
The problem is, there are so goddamn many writers who have no idea they're supposed to be paid every time they do something, they do it for nothing. I get so angry because the amateurs make it tough for the professionals. I sell myself, but at the highest rates. I don't take a piss without getting paid.
HARLAN ELLISON
I read a lot of science fiction as a kid. And, of course, that meant reading boys books because that's what kids' science fiction was. I made up my own stories to put myself in them. I wound up writing science fiction from the point of view of girls and women, just because I was a girl and I am a woman. I wound up writing science fiction from the point of view of Black people because I am Black. But I've also explored and I, in a strange sense, I suppose, found out what it might be like to be a white male or whatever. One of the things writing does is, is allow you to be other people without actually being locked up for it.
OCTAVIA BUTLER
Beyond imagination and insight, the most important component of talent is perseverance—the will to write and rewrite in pursuit of perfection. Therefore, when inspiration sparks the desire to write, the artist immediately asks: Is this idea so fascinating, so rich in possibility, that I want to spend months, perhaps years, of my life in pursuit of its fulfillment? Is this concept so exciting that I will get up each morning with the hunger to write? Will this inspiration compel me to sacrifice all of life's other pleasures in my quest to perfect its telling? If the answer is no, find another idea. Talent and time are a writer's only assets. Why give your life to an idea that's not worth your life?
ROBERT McKEE
Don't panic. Midway through writing a novel, I have regularly experienced moments of bowel-curdling terror, as I contemplate the drivel on the screen before me and see beyond it, in quick succession, the derisive reviews, the friends' embarrassment, the failing career, the dwindling income, the repossessed house, the divorce . . . Working doggedly on through crises like these, however, has always got me there in the end. Leaving the desk for a while can help. Talking the problem through can help me recall what I was trying to achieve before I got stuck. Going for a long walk almost always gets me thinking about my manuscript in a slightly new way. And if all else fails, there's prayer. St. Francis de Sales, the patron saint of writers, has often helped me out in a crisis. If you want to spread your net more widely, you could try appealing to Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, too.
SARAH WATERS
Love your characters. Ask yourself what underlay their acts and versions of the past. Sometimes I pray to see people I’m angry at or resentful of as God sees them, which heals both page and heart. And one big fat caveat: lead with your own talent, which may cause you to ignore all I’ve recommended.
MARY KARR
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 2019-2025. All rights reserved. Website by Wei-Haas Creative.
The trademark AdviceToWriters® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.