Joy Fielding Quotes

When a good writer is having fun, the audience is almost always having fun too.

The first paragraph of my book must get me my reader. The last paragraph of a chapter must compel my reader to turn the page. The last paragraph of my book must ensure that my reader looks out for my next book.

I just think when you read something that's magnetic that pulls you into it or resonates with you, whatever that may be, that's always a positive thing.

I love piecing together intricate thoughts that people find compulsively readable and they can't put down.

If, in the very first pages, I'm forced to read gratuitous phrases or banal metaphors, I won't be able to get inside the story. Only if the sentences 'sparkle' can I get hooked.

Every now and again, a script comes along that you just can't put down, and 'Deep State' is exactly that - a great example of the best kind of writing.

Six Seconds is a great read. Echoing Ludlum and Forsythe, author Mofina has penned a big, solid international thriller that grabs your gut -- and your heart -- in the opening scenes and never lets go.

With fiction, it could be about anything. It just has to be good writing, like Maria Semple's "Where'd You Go, Bernadette," which I read recently. I want to forget I have a book in my hand.

When you pick up a script and you can't stop reading it because it's a real page-turner, that's a good sign.

The first page sells this book. The last page sells your next book.

I have a very healthy appetite for good writing and good characters. Having weak writing is my biggest fear.

Too many writers think that all you need to do is write well-but that's only part of what a good book is. Above all, a good book tells a good story. Focus on the story first. Ask yourself, 'Will other people find this story so interesting that they will tell others about it?' Remember: A bestselling book usually follows a simple rule, 'It's a wonderful story, wonderfully told'; not, 'It's a wonderfully told story.'

My books flow. People say they pick them up and they can't put them down. It's because when I'm writing them I pick my pen up and I cannot put my pen down.

Nothing is too long or too short either if you have a true and interesting tale and what I call a "graphic" writing style combined with educational aims.

I must read. I must read. I must read.

Good story' means something worth telling that the world wants to hear. Finding this is your lonely task...But the love of a good story, of terrific characters and a world driven by your passion, courage, and creative gifts is still not enough. Your goal must be a good story well told.

Because reading is one of the joys of life, and once you begin, you can't stop, and you've got so many stories to look forward to.

Words like 'unputdownable' and 'irresistible' are simply not enough for Cat Winters's In the Shadow of Blackbirds. Days after finishing this story, it remains the first thought I have in the morning, and the thing that haunts me until I sleep.

Somehow, some way, incredibly enough, good writing ultimately gets recognized. If you're a really good writer and deserve that honored position, then by God, you'll write, and you'll be read.

I always read. You know how sharks have to keep swimming or they die? I’m like that. If I stop reading, I die.

William Goldman's Marathon Man was a novel that taught me about suspense. I was maybe 16 years old when I read it and I remember thinking, "You could put a gun to my head and I wouldn't put this book down." I loved that feeling - and want to give it others.

Prose talent depends on having something to say and an interesting, highly developed way of saying it.

I want to have a movie where people's eyes are glued to the screen, not when they're running from the screen.

When talented people write badly, it's generally for one of two reasons: Either they're blinded by an idea they feel compelled to prove of they're driven by an emotion they must express. When talented people write well, it is generally for this reason: They're moved by a desire to touch the audience.

Luck took me right out of myself - I read it in one gulp, and it never let me down. Sharp and surprising but always responsible, no tricks for tricks' sake; so satisfying, with its shifting and puzzles. So much fiction turns out to be diversion, in spite of fancy claims, and doesn't really look at anything. Well - this does.