Tim O'Brien Quotes

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

It took me years to learn that sentences in fiction must do much more than stand around and look pretty.

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.

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

I find it satisfying and intellectually stimulating to work with the intensity, brevity, balance and word play of the short story.

I suppose writing nonfiction did prepare me for writing fiction. Whenever you write anything, you're honing your skills for writing anything else.

Stories of all lengths and depths come from different parts of the cave. For a novel, you must lay in mental, physical and spiritual provision as for a siege or for a time of hectic explosions, while a short story is, or can be, a steady, timed flame like the lighting of a blow lamp on a building site full of dry tinder.

I've never written poetry. I'm not a poet, but I think the nearest you get is either the short story or the novella, in that you can't waste a word. There is no hiding place: everything's got to be seen to relate, and the prose counts.

There came this point where I sat down with all my notebooks and I had to start to write, when I thought: this whole notion of writing for the person who understands nothing, the average reader... He has to die! I can't have him in my head. And so the person I started writing for was the homicide detective.

As a writer, my only responsibility is to tell a compelling story.

I think it's a short story writer's duty, as well as writing well about emotions and characters, to write story.

My fiction-writing DNA shows in how I think about prose, how I think about the page, how I think nonfiction stories should work. And every piece of nonfiction I write, I want it to have fictional texture.

I write a story as if it were a letter to someone and essentially, that's what you do.

My sister and brother are both writers as well. We are constantly discussing story and plot lines. And I love to discuss story ideas with my husband.

When I work on a novel, I usually have one character and a setting in mind.

It's not easy to tell a story about writers and make that feel like a complete story and an interesting story.

Technique is of less interest than character and story.

I did try to write stories in college because I was interested in writing, and I was interested in the sound of language, but I was just no good at narrative and at fiction.

My advice is that it's easier to write than direct. If you have an interest in writing, write. You might as well start with yourself or some event you know well, and you need a point of view.

My story is very long. And for somebody to write a good story, one needs a good writer, too.

I don't write a lot of fiction.

We're constantly trying to find the best way to tell the stories that we want.

To me, a good storyteller should be able to tell stories across genres.

But basically, I'm trying to write a fun story.