7 Orson Scott Card Quotes on Writing

Orson Scott Card quotes on writing

10. The danger that keeps me just a little frightened with every book I write, however, is that I'll overreach myself once too often and try to write a story that I'm just plain not talented or skilful enough to write. That's the dilemma every storyteller faces. It is painful to fail. But it is far sadder when a storyteller stops wanting to try.

1083. Faster than light travel - do I think it could happen in the way I describe? [snort] No.

1099. If you write like James Joyce, you will have an audience of twenty. The other nineteen - besides your mother, because your father won't read it - will only be reading it to find out how on earth you got published.

1100. You need to remember that what you're dealing with here is the ideas I had when I was 16 that I'm putting in my fiction now.

1101. Tell the story plainly and clearly.

1102. I wonder sometimes if the motivation for writers ought to be contempt, not admiration. (from the introduction to the story collection Future on Fire, where he discusses writers he considers to be hacks.)

1103. If it isn't a wonderful story first, who cares how 'important' it is? (Ibid.)