Formulaic Writing Quotes

I don't see myself as an artist, as a writer. The sort of writing that I do, which is popular fiction, it's work. I have contracts to fulfil, and I have deadlines to meet.

Some writers would be kinder than others, I'm sure. Hopefully they might describe my techniques as a mixture of tried and tested formulas - if it aint broke don't fix it - and unexpected twists.

I don't want to write formula. I don't want to crank these books out like sausages. Every book is different, which takes a hell of a lot of ingenuity on my part.

Modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing is that it is easy.

Journalists in newspapers and in many magazines are not permitted to be subjective and tell their readers what they think. Journalists have got to follow a very strict formulaic line, and here we come, these non-fiction writers, these former journalists who are using all the techniques that journalists are pretty much not allowed to use.

The vast majority of fiction is written to markets and to this damnable business we have nowadays of categorizing everything.

I hate it when, by page 30, I know what the lead's going to do and then what the bad guy's gonna do. Mostly it's just scripts by the numbers where nothing's surprising, nothing's interesting.

I bought a selection of short, romantic fiction novels, studied them, decided that I had found a formula and then wrote a book that I figured was the perfect story. Thank goodness it was rejected.

Fantasy gets a mixed reception - a lot of fantasy is formulaic but most of the award-winning fantasy on the contrary tends to be the stuff at the edges of the genre, rather than swimming in the middle.

The characters are not allowed to change if you write a sitcom; they're not allowed to learn anything. There's all these sorts of rules, and you go, 'I just want to be able to write one character and then leave that behind.' Also, as a performer, and I may regret saying this, but it would be my own personal hell to be trapped in the sitcom.

Certainly, light fiction exists and encompasses mysteries or second-class romance novels, books that are read on the beach, whose only aim is to entertain. These books are not concerned with style or creativity - instead they are successful because they are repetitive and follow a template that readers enjoy.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to publish - or read - books that have a wide potential audience. But it does generate a certain plodding sameness of tone and subject matter that plagues a lot of contemporary American fiction.

When I'm writing a pop song, I'll just write formulaically, strategically.

There are many forms of writing that are common, but also very formulaic, such as annual reports or economic studies. In those areas, people would probably be relieved not to have to write those kinds of things because they are mundane and drudgery.

There certainly does seem a possibility that the detective story will come to an end, simply because the public will have learnt all the tricks.

One of the things that's pretty unique about nu shu, when you look especially at these old letters and stories that have been saved, is that there are certain lines that are very standard that are used again and again. It's almost like a formula in a sense, so that these certain lines come up again and again.

I try not to observe myself in the process of composing a poem because I don't want to come up with a formula, which I would then be unscrupulous in using.

Various books revolutionised what I think about novels and showed me that they're not strict, formulaic things. 'Coming Through Slaughter' by Michael Ondaatje was one of them.

Situation comedies are old-fashioned - they stick to formulas. I resent their music which is old fashioned. I resent the use of a laugh track.

I read contrived memoirs by presidential candidates. For every 'Dreams From My Father' - Barack Obama's honest, literary portrayal of his biracial upbringing - there were a dozen cautious, formulaic vanity projects by politicians.

As a reader, I do not like to have everything handed to me. Because after a while it gets formulaic and I'm thinking, "If this is so thought through, then why do I need to read it. It's done!" It becomes a beach book at a certain point.

[Political] prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house.

My instinct is to absolutely recoil when talking about writing in a mechanistic way. Nothing could be dumber than writing a film or TV script based on prescriptions, on other peoples' ideas of what character should be.

Over-certified adjectives are the mark of most best-seller writing

I've been offered a lot of police series, but I'm very good at staying away from them. They're usually based on such a boring formula.