Stacey Abrams Quotes

An attempt to write nothing but characterization will soon bog down; I for one don't want to have somebody tell me about someone else.

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

In the writing of novels, there is the problem of how to shape a narrative.

Language description and metaphors seem readily available. The things I have to work harder at are plot, pacing, and form.

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

When I'm writing a story, I try to reduce it to the barest possible components and go from there.

All the writing elements are the same. You need to tell a good story... You've got good characters... People think there's some dramatic difference between writing 'Little Bear' and the 'Hunger Games,' and as a writer, for me, there isn't.

I believe that the writer should tell a story. I believe in plot. I believe in creating characters and suspense.

There is no other way of writing a novel than to begin at the beginning at to continue to the end.

Probably every book I read influenced me in some small way. Authors like Jan Westcott, Kathleen Winsor, Catherine Cookson, Georgette Heyer, and even Barbara Cartland taught me to write character-driven stories.

I spent ages figuring out things like viewpoint, how you tell the story, and so on.

Before you can write a novel you have to have a number of ideas that come together. One idea is not enough.

A good story cannot be devised; it has to be distilled.

I never believed I could write anything. No way - write a whole story? Figuring out all that plotting and symbolism? How do you foreshadow things?

The building of the architecture of a novel - the craft of it - is something I never tire of.

My work as a screenwriter has influenced my fiction. Writing screenplays forces you to consider many elements regarding story structure and other narrative devices that can be used to enhance the infinitely more complex demands of a novel.

It's the technique, I think, of writing a novel that is difficult for a nonfiction writer.

You can read a dozen different textbooks or how-to manuals that will tell you the basic rules of what makes a story - a beginning, a middle, and an end.

I think I'm good at metaphors and descriptions. Plot doesn't come naturally to me, so I work really hard at it.

I believe that, in any novel of mine, the principal objective is the construction of the whole.

I often attribute my screenwriting to journalism because they drill in the who, what, when, where and why - but we really need to land on that why. That's what I've been exploring in my writing for many years and trying to get better at.

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.

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.

The most important aspect of any story, to me, is character.

My job as an author is to tell the story in the best way possible, to make it flow seamlessly and get the reader to keep turning the page.