Norman Davies Quotes

When we talk about good books, we often talk about good sentences, but what we rarely talk about is reader pleasure. Yet it is reader pleasure that is going to make a book break out into the kind of success that makes it into a household name.

The only pressure I feel is to write good books. And to not replicate the previous book. Whether you have a thousand readers or a million readers it doesn't change the pressure. I never feel tempted to give the reader what I think the reader wants.

Magazines are about trust and partnership: We, the editors, will strive always to keep you engaged; you, the readers, are free to engage with us or to reject us.

It's a grave mistake in publishing, whether you're talking about Internet or print publication, to try to play to a limited repertoire of established reader interests.

Everything I publish is for my readers.

I'm not sure the risks I take are any different from what other writers take, since we all serve at the pleasure of the reader.

You know what writers say about their long books: If I had another year, the book would be half as long.

Dear though the reader might be, I'd be silly to cater to what the reader wanted.

Unless you're doing a feature piece, which is going to be longer, and you have more time to get into stuff.

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.

It's not difficult for me to put my feelings into written form. I try to be concise and to go direct to the subject. This is what people like about my work, and what the critics hate.

People never read my books for the quality of the documentary value.

I don't want to waste my readers' time ever. My readers are very important to me.

Good writin' ain't necessarily good readin'.

The idea that the reader is important enough to me that I'd tailor my words to either please or offend them always seems amusingly alien to me.

I think precision in writing goes hand in hand with not trying to say everything. You try and say two-thirds, so the reader will involve himself or herself.

Emphasizing and rewarding length over quality results in worse writing and more reader abandonment.

Long fiction is wonderful and you can lose yourself in it as a reader and as a writer, but short stories don't allow the same kind of immersion. Often the best stories hold you back and make you witness them. This may be one of the reasons some people reject the form. That and the fact that they are harder work to read. A story will not let you get comfortable and settle in. It is like a stool that is so small that you must always be aware of sitting.

I've always written in first person. It gives the readers more insight.

When I get about five readers I can rub together in one genre, I leave that genre and go somewhere else. And this is due to a vow that I made myself when I started writing - that if I had any success at all, I would not be bound to one form of writing. That I would write what moves me. The only way I can see me surviving and doing more than one book is to present the readers with a Dan Simmons novel, with whatever tropes and protocols from whatever genre I want to borrow them. If that builds a Dan Simmons readership, well then, okay. Otherwise, forget about it. I'd rather drive a truck.

I confess to wincing every so often at a poorly chosen word, a mangled sentence, an expression of emotion that seems indulgent or overly practiced. I have the urge to cut the book by fifty pages or so, possessed as I am with a keener appreciation for brevity.

So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.

I also try to discipline myself when I get into a situation... and I'm trying to think of an answer, instead of being verbose, which is a tendency that I have, to be concise. Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.

but for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.

Brevity: To say at once whatever is to be said.