Max Apple Quotes

In my writing, I try to combine all my favorite elements of journalism - accuracy, real characters that exist on this planet - with all my favorite elements of literature: a sense of flow, of propulsion, of wanting to read every sentence.

In writing, I search for believability, simplicity and emotional impact.

One of the biggest problems for beginning writers is this need to over-explain.

I don't want my readers slowed down by long passages of narrative.

In good writing, the contemplative and the exciting happen at the same time.

If you consistently write 'The sun set' rather than 'The sun sank slowly in the bright western sky,' your story will move three times as fast. Of course, there are times you want the longer version for atmosphere - but not many. Wordiness not only kills pace; it bores readers.

Aim for brevity while avoiding jargon.

We should not write so that it is possible for [the reader] to understand us, but so that it is impossible for him to misunderstand us.

I do not wish to produce prose that draws attention to itself, rather than the world it describes.

Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them.

I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English - it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don't let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in.

I try to use all of my senses when describing a setting, and try to think of everything that would impact a character in any given scene.

Don't write so that you can be understood, write so that you can't be misunderstood.

I usually do at least a dozen drafts and progressively make more-conscious decisions. Because I've always believed stories are closer to poems than novels, I spend a lot of time on the story's larger rhythms, such as sentence and paragraph length, placement of flashbacks and dialogue.

I want the reader to feel something is astonishing. Not the 'what happens,' but the way everything happens. These long short story fictions do that best, for me.

I'm not an angry person. When I write, the lawyer in me tries to make it as easy to read as possible.

First comes an idea. Then, characters begin to evolve out of the landscape of that idea. And then, finally, characters dominate: plot is simply a function of what these people might do or be. Everything has to flow from their personalities; otherwise it will not be emotionally engaging, or plausible.

I believe the most important thing you can do in any kind of novel is to make your reader want to go on with it and want to know what happens next.

Short fiction is the medium I love the most, because it requires that I bring everything I've learned about poetry - the concision, the ability to say something as vividly as possible - but also the ability to create a narrative that, though lacking a novel's length, satisfies the reader.

I know little stories that happen to people around me, and I can repeat that in a way that has some color.

If fantasy is done well, it has both serious content in a literary fashion and is a really good read as well - and children and young adults won't suffer anything else.

I think it's such a challenge to tell a story, and I think, to be honest, the shorter, the clearer, the better.

I tell the story by feel most of the time, and I am not much given to labyrinthian digressions but seem to be naturally drawn to compression and pace, and the feelings come about on their own.

Picture books are the distillation of an idea, and you have to use just the right words. I love that, and I try to use a lot of action verbs.

Through an arbitrary problem, I had arrived at a tenet of good writing: brevity wins.