Richard Russo Quotes

I've written short stories from male perspectives before, and I've never had a problem with it as long as I've understood the character's emotions and motivations.

Read and write with a sensitive ear. The craft of writing is very important. Practice the craft.

The craft of writing is all the stuff that you can learn through school; go to workshops and read books. Learn characterization, plot and dialogue and pacing and word choice and point of view. Then there's also the art of it which is sort of the unknown, the inspiration, the stuff that is noncerebral.

It doubles your perception, to write from the point of view of someone you're not.

When I'm writing fiction, I'm sort of interested by the fact that somehow or other I can have the feeling of actually seeing things through someone else's eyes.

I wrote my first play at the age of 10, 55 years ago, and I've always found it a fantastic relief to imagine I know what things would be like from the point of view of other individuals and to send out signals from where I actually am not. Playwrights never need to write from the place where they are.

If you are a good writer - and I think I am - you are able to handle any kind of group and imagine their lives.

I was taking my first uncertain steps towards writing for children when my own were young. Reading aloud to them taught me a great deal when I had a great deal to learn. It taught me elementary things about rhythm and pace, the necessary musicality of text.

I don't really distinguish between sympathy and honesty when I'm writing. The two go together - I'm interested in inhabiting my characters, seeing the world through their eyes.

What I love about my work is that I'm forced to look through my character's eyes.

When I write, I try to become different characters.

Good writers are in the business of leaving signposts saying, Tour my world, see and feel it through my eyes; I am your guide.

As a writer, it is always fun to imagine yourself in someone else's shoes.

Good writing of course requires talent, and no one can teach you to have talent.

You have to have something worth saying and then the ability to say it- writing's a double skill, really.

I find it an easy way into writing pieces is to think what the character's voice is like, and start from there.

No, you're either born a writer, a storyteller, or you're not.

Writing is not an unknown territory for me.

I'm here to get the story on to the page. It would be good to catch your attention, and I have to make you want to read on, and I suppose I prefer you don't actually think about the 'how' at all - the writing technique, the 'style', or even who it is that's putting this together.

One of the reasons I began to write was because I wanted stories for my children where the characters spoke as they did and had similar life experiences.

I have friends who are capable of writing a very rough draft and then going back and embroidering - they're sort of the cathedral builders of fiction. I never really know what I'm doing, and all my pleasure's on the level of the line.

As a writer, it's a great narrative tool to have that character who is slightly detached but at the same time observant of his reality, because I think that's pretty much what being a writer is - being there, watching and internalizing.

Writers - all writers, even screenwriters - like to make their mark. I don't think many screenwriters can write. They pass as writers.

I think every fiction writer, to a certain extent, is a schizophrenic and able to have two or three or five voices in his or her body. We seek, through our profession, to get those voices onto paper.

I have no special talent, you know. I never took a writing course before I began to write.