Writing Quotes to Inspire Great Fiction
Quotations About Symbols, Themes, Interpretations & Writers
Sep 13, 2009
Beginning a new writing project? Stuck in a rut on a current writing project? Fear not, read from the wisdom of writers before you, and carry on!
These writing quotes culminate the best advice of some of the most-respected and experienced writers. These quotes deal with the art of fiction, the writing process, the interpretation of fiction, symbols and descriptions, themes and acceptance.
Quotes About the Art of Fiction and the Writing Process
Each writer has a different way of writing and a different opinion on the best method for beginning the writing process. Some writers map and outline every detail while others say the only way to understand where a story is headed is by allowing the characters and writing to guide. Fiction as an art is also different not only from writer to writer but also from reader to reader.
"Art is pleasing yourself... But you can please yourself and it won't be art. Art is having the mastery to take your experience, whether it's visual or mental, and make meaningful shapes that convey a reality to others." ~Gail Godwin
"...The first impulse in writing is to flood it out, let as much run freely as you possibly can. Then to take a walk or go to the bank... and come back in a day or six months later. To read it with a cold eye and say, 'This is good. This is not. That sentence works. This is magical. This is crummy.' You have to maintain your critical sensibility and not just assume, because it was an extraordinary dream for you, that it will be a dream for other people. Because people need maps to your dreams." ~Alan Gurganus
"A story has to be a good date, because the reader can stop at any time... Remember, readers are selfish and have no compulsion to be decent about anything." ~Kurt Vonnegut
"Break up the larger story into its components, make sure you understand the exact function of each component (a story is like a machine with numerous gears: it should contain no gear that doesn't turn something), and after each component has been carefully set in place, step back and have a look at the whole. Then rewrite until the story flows as naturally as a river, each element so blending with the rest that no one, not even yourself two years from now, can locate the separate parts." ~John Gardner
"When we dream we make connections that astound us later... The same thing happens on the page when we forget ourselves and as it were, watch our own waking dream... Later we can make sense of what we've created and craft it accordingly. That's when we appreciate the poetry of our unconscious mind." ~Tom Batt
Quotes About Symbols, Themes and Interpretation of Fiction
Should a theme be planned and carried throughout a work of fiction or does it intertwine into the writing in an unplanned way? How will a symbol be interpreted by readers? What does fiction aim at demonstrating? These questions are answered in these great quotes.
"Fiction is better experienced than interpreted... To fully understand a symbol is to kill it." ~Ron Hansen
"Your beliefs will be the light by which you see, but they will not be what you see and they will not be a substitute for seeing." ~Flannery O'Connor
"Almost all good stories are sad because it is the human struggle that engages us readers and listeners the most. To watch characters confront their hardships and uncertainties makes us feel better about our own conflicts and confusions and fears. We have a sense of community, of sympathy, a cleansing sympathy, as Aristotle said, and relief that we are safe in our room only reading the story. A story of sadness, even tragedy, makes us feel, paradoxically, better, as though we are confronting our own conflicts and fears, and have endured." ~Robert Morgan
"A short story is a writer's way of thinking through experience... Journalism aims at accuracy, but fiction's aim is truth. The writer distorts reality in the interest of a larger truth." ~John L'Heureux
"The truth is not distorted here, but rather a certain distortion is used to get at the truth." ~Flannery O'Connor
No matter your experience as a writer or your stage in a writing project, following the inspirational quotes of writers who have come before you can help ease your worries and guide your writing. Post one or two of these quotes in the places you write to remind you that you too can achieve greatness.
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