When you write a story, you're telling yourself the story...When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.

The corollary is that no writer will take all of his or her editor's advice; for all have sinned and fallen short of editorial perfection. Put another way, to …

Alcoholics build defenses like the Dutch build dikes. I spent the first twelve years or so of my married life assuring myself that I 'just liked to drink.' I a…

This is a short book because most books about writing are filled with bullshit. Fiction writers, present company included, don't understand very much about wha…

Character, to me, is the life's blood of fiction.

The economy of a novelist is a little like that of a careful housewife who is unwilling to throw away anything that might perhaps serve its turn. Perhaps the c…

Easy reading is damn hard writing.