Writing Structure Quotes

Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over.

There is no such thing as a natural sentence but there is such a thing as a natural paragraph and it must be found.

I think that writers are best served by sticking to their writing. Not having loads of theories about the best way to position the writing. I think that if the writing is good and the point of view is strong, the writing is going to take care of itself.

When you're learning, especially to write, unless you're some incredibly gifted writer, a young Malcom Gladwell, say, you need to be imitating people. You need to be imitating how they make their work, how they structure it, how they design the pieces. It gives you chops; it gives you moves.

When I don't have any story in my mind, I am busy doing foundation work.

I'm not a disciplined writer.

I don't work in a straight line. I don't write with an outline. I write where I can see things happen, and then things get glued together.

People don't stress enough that when they're writing lyrics, they are writing.

A lot of the time writers are just sponges... for what's around them, and so books are helpful for focusing your mind and literally putting it into words.

A page a day means I need to focus on a gag a day, and that's great for laughs but bad for plot, and I'm primarily a plot guy.

I don't fiddle or edit or change while I'm going through that first draft.

I'm not a writer that writes every day. I just kind of have ideas. I jot them down when I have them, and when I have enough, I just start. And for me, I start more around noon, and I'm all about feeling. Once there's a theme, I can't not write.

It's very hard to articulate the things that are important about writing.

I work on words quite separately to music. They're both ongoing, and I don't ever feel like I'm working in a cycle in that respect, because it's every day anyway, no matter what I'm doing. Then I get to a point when I've collected together enough words that seem like they want to be songs rather than poems, or sometimes not.

No, absolutely not, writing doesn't have to be like a jigsaw puzzle, it can be a very linear undertaking.

Sit down to write what you have thought, and not to think about what you shall write.

There are a lot of elements when you're writing, or when I'm writing, that are sitting in the back of your mind. I try to let them stay there, because they find their way in more naturally that way.

I love the structural part of the writing process.

Process does matter; you need a process. What it is is up to no one but you. But if you can't sit down, write once upon a time, and go through however many hundred thousand words to get to happily ever after, you're never going to get anywhere.

One of the qualities of writing that is not much stressed is its problem-solving aspect, having to do with the presentation of material: how to structure it, what sort of sentences (direct, elliptical, simple or compound, syntactically elaborate), what tone (in art, "tone" is everything), pacing. Paragraphing is a way of dramatization, as the look of a poem on a page is dramatic; where to break lines, where to end sentences.

I've written quite a few things, but I've put it on hold for now to see how everything fits together. Then I'll approach it and write specifically to see how the pieces fit in the puzzle.

The best thing we've learned is when you are attempting to write a full song, write a full song that day. When we first started, we would have great ideas, but there's something about a moment and a vibe that's being created in time that when you return to it, it sometimes works, and it sometimes doesn't.

I don't have writer's block, really. I do have times when I can't get the lead, and that is the only part of the story which I have serious trouble with. I don't write a word of the article until I have the lead. It just sets the whole tone - the whole point of view.

I'm slightly in awe of writers, such as Sophie Hannah, who follow outlines.

When I write, I work off of a theme, an emotion, a narrative - thinking of it and then expounding on it.