That’s the curse of the reading class. We can be seduced by a good story even at the most inopportune moments.
Remember that ‘plumber in space’ is not such a bad setup for a story.
Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world.
I never think of stories as made things; I think of them as found things. As if you pull them out of the ground.
Stories are like relics, part of an undiscovered preexisting world. The writer’s job is to use the tools in his or her toolbox to get as much of each one out of the ground intact as possible.
Description is what makes the reader a sensory participant in the story.
A short story is like a kiss in the dark.
When the reader hears strong echoes of his or her own life and beliefs, he or she is apt to become more invested in the story.
Politics always change. Stories never do.
I think the best stories always end up being about the people rather than the event, which is to say character-driven.
Only library books speak with such wordless eloquence of the power good stories hold over us.
As a rule, I don’t worry about genre. I just want to tell a good story, with characters that interest me and my readers.
The book is not the important part. The book is the delivery system. The important part is the story and the talent.
When I start a story, I don’t know where it’s going.
Without story books is like a person with no soul.
When you write you tell yourself a story. When you rewrite you take out everything that is NOT the story.
Overnight success stories take a long time.
There’s nothing that makes my day more than getting an e-mail from some random person in the universe who just bought an iPad over in the UK and tells me the story about how it’s the coolest product they’ve ever brought home in their lives. That’s what keeps me going.
Packaging can be theater, it can create a story.
The main feature should be the teaching of principles through stories. Don’t make it metaphysical at all.