Leigh Michaels Quotes

Suspense is very important. Even though this is humor and they're short stories, that theory of building suspense is still there.

We want a story that starts out with an earthquake and works its way up to a climax.

For success, the author must make the reader care about the destiny of the principals, and sustain this anxiety, or suspense, for about 100,000 words.

Why, for example, do the great writers use anticipation instead of surprise? Because surprise is merely an instrument of the unusual, whereas anticipation of a consequence enlarges our understanding of what is happening.

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.

It's just a matter of writing the kind of book I enjoy reading. Something better be happening at the beginning, and then on every page after, or I get irritated.

Beginnings and endings are not interesting; audiences want the high point, which means you've got to get to it and get to it now - get the gun out fast, the clothes off quick.

The only thing I knew about novels from a technical point of view was that they should have conflict.

Plot is what happens in your story. Every story needs structure, just as every body needs a skeleton. It is how you 'flesh out and clothe' your structure that makes each story unique.

Good stories are driven by conflict, tension, and high stakes.

In plotting a book, my goal is to raise the stakes for the characters and, in so doing, keep the reader mesmerized.

What I do is put my characters into situations that are so precarious there is no way to get out. And then I figure how to get them out.

I think that even if you're wondering if two characters are ever going to kiss, drawing out the inevitability is part of the fun. Whatever the genre happens to be.

The way I express ideas is through the plot, Suspense is an important part of expressing an idea.

Even if your novel occurs in an unfamiliar setting in which all the customs and surroundings will seem strange to your reader, it's still better to start with action. The reason for this is simple. If the reader wanted an explanation of milieu, he would read nonfiction. He doesn't want information. He wants a story.

You can have the greatest characters in the world and write beautifully, but if nothing's happening, the story falls on its face pretty quickly.

The author always knows more than the reader does at the start of a novel, and gradually, they share that knowledge with the reader - that's storytelling.

Every story needs an element of suspense - or it's lousy.

You can't write just anything. Your story needs structure.

What keeps readers turning pages is suspense, which you can create using a variety of techniques, including tension, pacing and foreshadowing.

I think a little menace is fine to have in a story. For one thing, it's good for the circulation.

I love a big, character-rich story with a dark heart, with a compelling mystery or some kind of ticking clock at its center. I want to be lured in by prose, captured by character, and bound by stellar plotting to keep turning the pages.

A novel requires a certain kind of world-building and also a certain kind of closure, ultimately. Whereas with a short story you have this sense that there are hinges that the reader doesn't see.

When you think of a great twist or a red herring or a way of misdirecting the reader, it is good, but you know that they are just tricks at the end of the day, and the way to keep interest is to write characters that people care about.

In a novel you have to resist the urge to tell everything.