Home > Work > Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies

Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies QUOTES

Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies QUOTES

1 " Say it new or say it straight. "

― Sol Stein , Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies

2 " Look how you're dressed. Your suit is blue, your shirt is blue, your tie is blue. That's what's wrong with your writing. "

― Sol Stein , Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies

3 " Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader, not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon. "

― Sol Stein , Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies

4 " The novelist is like the conductor of an orchestra, his back to the audience, his face invisible, summoning the experience of music for the people he cannot see. The writer as conductor also gets to compose the music and play all of the instruments, a task less formidable than it seems. "

― Sol Stein , Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies

5 " Characters paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink water from time to time. "

― Sol Stein , Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies

6 " There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein. "

― Sol Stein , Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies

7 " You can never know enough about your characters. "

― Sol Stein , Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies

8 " What I have never witnessed is a writer’s work succeeding notably in a field he doesn’t habitually read for pleasure. "

― Sol Stein , Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies

9 " Today’s readers can be roughly divided into two groups, those who accept the fantasy villains of childhood, as in the James Bond stories and Arnold Schwarzenegger films, and those who insist on credibility. "

― Sol Stein , Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies

10 " The function of suspense is to put the reader in danger of an overfull bladder. "

― Sol Stein , Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies

11 " Tension produces instantaneous anxiety, and the reader finds it delicious. "

― Sol Stein , Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies

12 " We are all writers from an early age. Most of what we write is nonfiction—essays for school, letters to friends, memoranda to colleagues—in which we are trying to pass on information. We are raised with a traditional nonfiction mind-set. Even when we write love letters, we are trying to communicate how we feel and not necessarily trying to evoke an emotion in the recipient, though that might be better suited to our purpose. "

― Sol Stein , Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies

13 " Parents begin by loving their children; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them. "

― Sol Stein , Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies

14 " be sure you don’t stop the story while describing. You are a storyteller, not an interior decorator. "

― Sol Stein , Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies

15 " Diction involves the choice of words for their precise meaning and sound, the arrangement of those words, and their selection for effect. "

― Sol Stein , Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies

16 " Writers of nonfiction have the right—perhaps even the responsibility—to access the wonders of the writer’s craft to make their work interesting and enjoyable. "

― Sol Stein , Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies

17 " A writer who always has his characters “walk” is missing opportunities. "

― Sol Stein , Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies

18 " In America only the successful writer is important, in France all writers are important, in England no writer is important, in Australia you have to explain what a writer is. "

― Sol Stein , Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies

19 " Those are the three keys: the want and the opposition to the want need to be important, necessary, and urgent. The result should be the kind of conflict that interests readers. "

― Sol Stein , Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies

20 " When we get involved with other people, the chances of a clash are present even with people we love because we do not have the same scripts in our heads. "

― Sol Stein , Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies