(10 Interviewing Tips for Journalists.)

It’s especially important to include quotations in historical and news articles to provide further insight into things discussed. Here, we’ll look at how you can add quotations to your articles.

Why You Should Add Quotes to Articles

Quotations can be a useful tool for numerous reasons. Firstly, because they add a more human touch to articles. For example, quoting what people who’ve experienced historical events have said about them is a good way to bring historical pieces to life. Directly quoting what people say can also reveal more about particular events or highlight opinions in news articles.

Adding quoted material is a good way to support arguments and points raised within articles. For example, you can quote important passages from documents and letters to highlight historical evidence that supports your narrative. Or add verbal (speech) quotations from significant figures of the past or present that support the narrative.

Another good reason to add quotes is to enhance descriptions and details within your articles. For example, quoting what a company CEO, director, developer, or other representative has said about a new product or service can expand upon your descriptions of it. These “straight from the horse’s mouth” quotations from company people can provide more details about new products and services.

Finally, adding more intriguing words of wisdom quotations can be a good way to draw attention to topics or themes covered in articles. The father of Disraeli, a former UK prime minister, is quoted as saying, “The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotation.” Thus, some interesting quotes can be quite poetic.

How to Add Quotes

The basic rule for adding direct quotes is that they must always have quotation marks around them. Opening and closing quotation marks highlight the beginning and end of quoted passages. In American English, you should add double quotation marks (“66 and 99”) around quotes included within paragraphs.

However, this rule doesn’t apply to block quotations. A block quote is a longer quotation separated from the rest of an article’s text with its own exclusive paragraph. The Associated Press and APA style guides agree that a suitable minimum length for block quotes is 40 words. Quotation marks are not necessary for block quotes because they are indented on new lines, separated from surrounding paragraphs.

You should always add a comma directly before the start of a quotation when introducing short, one-sentence quotes. However, the Associated Press style advocates adding a colon before quotations two sentences or longer. Colons should always be used when introducing block quotes. A short quote integrated within a sentence that’s not directly introduced does not need to be preceded by a comma. Here are some examples:

• In his “Sinews of Peace” speech, Winston Churchill stated, “From Stettin in the Baltic, to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.”
• To be victorious in battle, Sun Tzu’s Art of War book says: “Move swift as the wind and closely-formed as the wood. Attack like the fire and be still as the mountain.”

Quotation sources should be attributed in some way, as in the examples above. If the quote is from a well-known person or historical figure, make it clear who exactly said it. Or add general references for quotes from people who aren’t well known.

Full stops (periods) and commas at the end of quotes should always be included within quoted material for American English, as shown in the examples above. However, semicolons and colons at the ends of quotes should go outside quotation marks. Include question marks within quotes only when the quotations are questions. If not, add the question mark to the end of the sentence outside the closing quotation mark.

Adding quotations can be more confusing when they include their own quoted speech or text. In this case, we must add single quotation marks (‘ and ’) for the quoted material within the quote. For example, a player comment from this Reddit post source says, “Hey, I’ve been getting an error code that reads, ‘You were removed from the match due to internet lag, your IP or machine, VPN usage, or for cheating.’” That quote includes a quoted error message for which there are single quotation marks.

How to Copy and Paste Quoted Text

It’s quicker and easier to copy and paste text passages to quote into articles rather than manually typing them. All Windows and Mac computers have hotkeys (keyboard shortcuts) for copying and pasting text. You can utilize those hotkeys to copy selected passages from a web browser into your word processor.

Windows PC users can copy and paste text with the Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V keyboard shortcuts. Select any text passage you want to quote with your mouse cursor and select Ctrl + C to copy. Click inside a document within your word processor and press Ctrl + V to paste the copied text in. Command + C and Command + V are the equivalent copy-and-paste hotkeys for macOS users.

Alternatively, you can copy and paste text with context menu options. Select the text to quote in your web browser, right-click your mouse, and select the Copy option. Then, right-click inside your word processor to select a Paste option.

The text you copy on a Windows 11 or 10 PC is copied to a clipboard. You can view multiple copied text snippets on that clipboard by pressing the Windows logo + V keyboard shortcut. Click on a copied passage there to paste it into a word processor.

Copied passages will sometimes retain unwanted text formatting from their websites. One way you can remove such formatting is to paste copied text into the Windows Notepad first. Notepad is a plain-text editor that removes all fancy formatting it doesn’t support from pasted text. You can find and open that app by typing Notepad into the Windows search tool and selecting it from there.

Some word processors also include options you can select to paste passages into them without any website text formatting retained. For example, Microsoft Word has a Keep Text Only option you can select. Paste text into that word processor with the Ctrl + V hotkey and click Ctrl to select Paste Text Only.

Where to Find Famous Quotes

You can get your quotations from any source. However, numerous quote websites are good sources for finding interesting quotations from more famous people and historical figures. Those websites are like directories that contain thousands of intriguing quotations for you to copy and paste into your articles.

The Quotations Page is one such website. You can browse through that site’s quotes by clicking Author Index. That will open a page from which you can click links for people to view their quotes. Then, copy and paste the quotations from there to include in your articles.

Aside from the Quotations Page, AZ Quotes, QuoteFancy, Quotes.net, and QuoteGarden are similar sites with large directories of quotes. QuoteFancy is a slightly more novel website because it also provides free-to-use quote images for all quotations it includes. QuoteFancy allows you to use up to 500 of those creative files per blog or website with appropriate attribution.

Although I don’t recommend stuffing articles with quoted material, it’s certainly good practice to add quotations when appropriate, as covered above. Adding effective quotes can help to breathe more life into your articles. Quotations can inspire, fascinate, and inform your audience in many ways.

The post A Writer’s Guide to Adding Quotations to Articles appeared first on Writer's Digest.

“One thing that’s always helped me, even when I’m feeling stuck, is to carry a notebook everywhere. The brain is always working on the story in the background, even if you’re not aware it’s relentlessly trying to fix that plot hole in the second act. The solution might pop into your head at a random time, and you have to be ready to catch it. And here’s a piece of advice I learned from creating the ‘Sophie’ series: If you’re not heading in the right direction, don’t be afraid to change course. Take a moment to plan your new path and start building your own track. It might be scary at first, but you’ll eventually have your own railroad steaming towards your goal.” –Brian Anderson, author of Sophie: Jurassic Bark and Sophie: Frankenstein’s Hound (Marble Press)

“The transition from writing for yourself to writing professionally can have a lot of moments where things feel out of your hands, and if you’re like me and can become stressed and anxious, then I recommend finding something that can take you out of that. Whether that’s a cozy videogame like Stardew Valley, a TV or YouTube show that makes you laugh, or even disappearing into your own world and writing little chapters meant just for you (as I often do), then run with it, and try not to feel guilty about time spent doing it.” –Steven Banbury, author of The Pumpkin Princess and the Forever Night (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

“Keep reading, writing, and trusting your instincts. If you believe in something, work hard and will it into existence. Because if you don’t write all those amazing ideas that are bouncing around your head, no one will, and then how will you get any sleep?” –Adam Borba, author of This Again? (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

“Do it because it’s fun. Life’s too short to do it for any other reason because writing is hard. But it’s also fun!” –Patrick Carman, author of The Terror in Jenny’s Armpit (Blackstone)

“Goodness! I would say that it’s really good to have a notebook where you write your thoughts. I don’t carry a notepad or anything. But I find that writing every day, just putting a timer on and pouring your thoughts into a page for a time, can give you a ton of excellent raw material. Sometimes you write a bunch of whining and complaining and boring stuff. But sometimes a sentence just JUMPS OUT OF THE PAGE! When there is a concept or a thought that makes your body buzz with emotion, I think it’s necessary to listen to it. To feel it and to explore it further. Once, I was struggling to write my second book and I asked fellow author Iain Reid for advice. He told me, “Chase that sense of excitement.” I wrote that on a tiny piece of paper and taped it to my wall so I wouldn’t forget. I think him and I refer to the same feeling. There is magic in some ideas. And if the writer can sense that magic inside, if you can listen to it, respect it and protect it from the elements, it is almost like a force of nature. And the reader will naturally feel it as well.” –Ani Castillo, author of People Are My Favorite Places (Little Brown)

“Outline, but don’t be afraid to ignore your notes when it feels right. The story has a life of its own.” –Bryan Chick, author of Wayfinders (Blackstone)

“Hold on to ALL your notes!” –Gary Clement, author of K Is in Trouble (Little, Brown Ink)

“Write about what you love and why you love it. Write the story that you’ve always wanted to read. And remember to have fun. If you don’t enjoy writing your story, it’s doubtful anyone will enjoy reading it.” –Ernest Cline, author of Bridge to Bat City (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

“Don’t be afraid to write and rewrite, give yourself a break—come back and take what you like from that previous version into the next. Recognize that you are creative and that creativity can get exhausted. Don’t be too hard on yourself during the process, and be open to trying something new. Add in something goofy, something silly, something only you would laugh at, and you’ll be surprised how people respond. For me it was the moment with the mouse tail I found kind of silly, but I’ve noticed a lot of folks laughing and that made me laugh. We have to be our first fans before others see the work, so have fun and enjoy the process.” –Arihhonni David, author of The Good Game (Holiday House)

“Even if you’re a committed plotter, you really don’t need to have it all worked out before you begin. Trust that ideas will come to you as you write. Enjoy the process of discovery.” –Barbara Dee, author of Unstuck (Aladdin)

“The secret is that there is no secret. I’m sorry, but it’s true. The secret is to work really hard for 10 or 20 years, making mistakes, doing stupid things, going off in all the wrong directions, getting rejected a thousand times, and never giving up. The secret is finally, after all that, discovering the thing that you were meant to do. Maybe it’s not to write children’s books at all. Maybe your calling is to make keys in a hardware store. That’s the thing that you’re good at, the thing that makes you feel confident and fulfilled. The thing that’s fun for you. The thing you can make a living doing. When you do what you love, you’ll love what you do.” –Dan Gutman, author of My Weird School 20th Anniversary (HarperCollins)

“Find a community that supports you. Writing, and subsequently publishing, is such a particular journey that it’s hard to communicate your experience to people outside of the writing community. Find a group of people to both commiserate and celebrate with. I will be forever grateful for my 2024 Debut Group for being this support system for me.” –Nashae Jones, author of Courtesy of Cupid (Aladdin)

“There are no shortcuts; your book only works if you do. Carving out time to write is so important. It doesn’t matter if it’s a half hour in the mornings before work or a three-hour block on the weekends—consistency is key!” –Jordan Kopy, author of Theodora Hendrix and the Monstrous League of Monsters (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)

“Really lean into the importance of self-care. Growing up, I heard lots of advice on ‘not giving up’ and not enough reminders to take it easy and/or take better care of yourself. As a result, I was often dejected, burned out, and/or really hard on myself as I set impossible goals like ‘be published by 20!’ or ‘become a NYT bestselling author!’ It’s a tough industry! You really need to take care of yourself so you can be in it for the long-haul.” –Lyla Lee, author of Gigi Shin is Not a Nerd (Aladdin)

“Don’t give up as lost that manuscript wasting away in your computer. Even a kernel of writing promise can be crafted into a real-live book, if you just keep rewriting.” –Dionna L. Mann, author of Mama’s Chicken and Dumplings (Margaret Ferguson Books)

“Trust your story. It’s so easy to think you have to follow a certain set of rules—whether they’re the rules of the genre you’re writing or the rules you set for your own series. But if your story is telling you it’s time to break free and do your own thing, trust it. The best scenes and moments always happen when you let go and allow the story to truly come to life.” –Shannon Messenger, author of Unraveled (Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing)

“I think it’s fun to create a space to work that fits the style of books you write. My writing cottage in Gloucestershire is in the middle of a woodland, and looks like a witch’s cottage from a fairy tale. When I was writing this story, a rose briar grew in through the window, and twirled its way around my desk, just like the ones that surrounded Sleeping Beauty’s castle.” –Ben Miller, author of The Day I Fell Into a Fairytale (Simon & Schuster)

“I guess my advice would be for them to find a process that works for them and trust that process. I always start a book a bit uncertain of where this story will take me, but I’ve learned that surprises along the way are part of my process, and one that thrills me every time one appears.” –Claudia Mills, author of The Last Apple Tree (Margaret Ferguson Books)

“It’s old news and it’s true—these things take time! So much work happens in book making before there’s any outside validation. Especially if you’re a working parent, things can go at an excruciatingly slow pace. My advice is to stay with it, in whatever capacity you can. If you stay on the path, eventually there’s a body of work behind you.” –Aya Morton, author of The Days are Long, the Years are Short (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

“Don’t worry about pleasing an unknown child with your story. Write for the child that you once were—or better yet, for the child that you are.” –Yevgenia Nayberg, author of A Party for Florine: Florine Stettheimer and Me (Neal Porter Book/Holiday House)

“Don’t be overly fixated on one way of telling one story.” –Debbie Ridpath Ohi, author of I Want to Read ALL the Books (Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers)

“Watch old movies! Reading is a given. So, you should do that. As much as possible. But I’ve also found that watching older movies puts my creative brain in a different kind of space. Not only am I exposing myself to classic art (yay culture!), but I’m also diversifying the content I’m consuming and opening myself up to different kinds of characters and plots and pacing than have been popular more recently. If that sounds interesting, you could start by looking through the AFI Top 100 list or check out what’s on TCM one night and see if it does the same thing for you.” –Adam Rosenbaum, author of The Ghost Rules (Holiday House)

“Developing your writing craft is not always going to feel like a linear process. If writing Just Shy of Ordinary taught me anything, it’s that each story is different and may present challenges I didn’t encounter writing other stories. As an example, the writing process for my third novel, Camp QUILTBAG was a night-and-day experience compared to writing Just Shy of Ordinary (which is my fourth novel). Camp QUILTBAG was a joy to write. The outline was relatively easy to convert into prose. In comparison to the 17-page letter I got for Shy, Camp’s edit letter was only 2 pages long. At first, this made me feel like I was moving backwards. Shouldn’t each book be easier since I understand the drafting process better and have presumably improved my craft as I go? As I made my way through the editorial process for Shy, I realized I was trying different things with it from my other projects. For the first time ever, I included poetry as part of the story, for one. I was also focusing on my character’s struggles with their mental health, which was emotionally taxing on me and made drafting it more of a challenge. Each project is different and may have different needs. As a result, some projects may feel more difficult than others, even if you’re a seasoned writer. That’s OK. It’s all just part of your writing journey.” –A.J. Sass, author of Just Shy of Ordinary (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

“I have two pieces of advice. Read widely. Even though you may write in one genre, reading across multiple genres and age groups are critical and vastly enjoyable. It fuels creativity. Writing is often about self-discovery. To travel deeper into the ideas and thoughts that shape us is enlightening and often scary. Since it is a journey, my advice is don’t be afraid to take a new path, you may come across unexpected vistas.” –Kashmira Sheth, author of I’m from Here Too (Peachtree)

“It’s been said many times, but I think the most important thing after a little planning, plotting, and thinking is to get down a bad first draft—just something that crudely resembles the shape of what you are trying to do. That’ll be much easier to edit and learn from than trying to write something perfectly in one go.” –Gideon Sterer, author of Treehouse Town (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

“Your creativity doesn’t have to follow anyone’s exact step-by-step process! Some people write detailed outlines before writing, others write straight ahead. I found out after a lot of trial and error that I have to draw my first draft of a graphic novel in really rough sketches rather than writing it in words as a script because that’s just how my brain works—I am apparently very visual. If it works and you get a story out of it – it works!” –Alina Tysoe, author of The Great Puptective (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)

“There are stories that you are meant to tell. Sometimes, we talk ourselves out of them because of fear. As a good friend told me, you can’t be brave without fear. Write the story. It may take years. Someone may have the same exact idea. So, what? Only you can tell the story the way you are to tell it. We all come with different backgrounds, traditions, experiences, regrets, and lessons, which will influence the telling. So, if the universe grants you the gift of an idea, then honor it. You’ll grow, and you’ll learn more of yourself. And the bigger picture is, someone is waiting to grow and learn through your story too.” –Alicia D. Williams, author of Mid-Air (Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books)

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While there’s no shortage of writing advice, it’s often scattered around—a piece of advice here, words of wisdom there. And in the moments when you most need writing advice, what you find might not resonate with you or speak to the issue you’re dealing with. In A Year of Writing Advice, the editors of Writer’s Digest have gathered thoughts, musings, and yes, advice from 365 authors in dozens of genres to help you on your writing journey.

Click to continue.

The post One Piece of Advice From 27 Middle Grade and Picture Book Authors in 2024 appeared first on Writer's Digest.

(Subscribe to future issues of Writer’s Digest here.)

There are probably at least 23 highlighted quotes in each issue of the magazine, because each issue is packed with so much great advice from experienced writers, debut authors, literary agents, editors, and more. And, speaking for myself, highlighting (and even writing out) quotes helps me remember them better.

One of the other editors probably has their own list of 23 other quotes, but this is my favorite 23 writing and publishing quotes from the print magazine in 2023 (and I might’ve even snuck in an extra quote, because I love consistency). When you get a moment, try reading through all the 2023 issues as well and look forward to more great advice in 2024!

January/February 2023: Finding Success “Inside” the Box

“To give my characters depth, I needed to get to know them past who they were in my stories. What I began doing was spending days with my characters in my head. It went beyond simply asking my characters interview questions and delved deep into understanding who they were in their everyday lives. While I still did character-developing exercises—like interviews—what really took my characters beyond the surface was spending time with them and listening to them.” —Aigner Loren Wilson from “How I Punched Up My Fiction to Get Out of the Slush Pile”

“Nobody should feel obliged to put something deeply personal, whether related to their identity or to an event, on the page for public consumption.” —Whitney Hill from “Writing What You Know: Yourself”

“Rather than avoiding tropes, perhaps writers should consider the way many readers love to read them, and instead strive to make their tropes unique, or upend expectations.” —Jordan Rosenfeld from “Tropes and Why We Love Them”

“There’s no shortage of ideas. It’s the execution of the idea that matters. And I think that’s true for almost anything in society. I think ideas may be overrated because you can sit on a couch and have an idea. And then someone else has the idea and makes it happen. … So, for me, it’s not the idea of what I would write about. It’s, ‘Can I execute it in a manner that the reader deserves from me?'” —Neil deGrasse Tyson from “The WD Interview”

(Get the January/February 2023 issue of Writer’s Digest here.)

March/April 2023: Exploring Genre Fiction

“Writing can be a lonely journey, so find a group in person or online to join along the way. These communities can help you polish your work, but they can also serve as a sounding board or even support group during those long months of silence.” —Christopher Stollar from “Tips for Transitioning in Publishing”

“You’ll probably always be your own worst critic, but you won’t likely be a fair one—don’t be afraid to seek (and apply) feedback from trusted sources, while remembering that outside of true errors, it’s all subjective. Good or bad, they are all just opinions—ultimately, you have to do what best honors your voice as a writer.” —Christina C. Jones from “IndieLab”

“The design of your website should reflect your book’s genre in some way. It must appeal to your ideal reader. If your genre is science fiction, you’ll want to include the kind of science that relates to your book. Instead of roses and fairy-tale landscapes, you’ll incorporate images of telescopes and nebulas. If you’re a horror writer, you might use a shadowy theme with monsters and streams of blood. If you’re a children’s writer, you can appeal to a more playful mindset using primary colors and child-like fonts.” —Kim Catanzarite from “The Importance of Genre”

“I think that magic is always a metaphor, right? But I think to write fantasy, it has to also be magic. I think the ways it is understood as metaphor are important. Magic is always saying something that’s allowing you to look at something slanted.” —Holly Black from “The WD Interview”

(Get the March/April 2023 issue of Writer’s Digest here.)

May/June 2023: Keeping It Short

“Write without worrying about what will sell.” —Ismita Hussain from “Meet the Agent”

“The best advice I can give you when creating your elevator pitch is to learn the difference between describing your plot vs. explaining your plot. A pitch (no matter what kind) needs to leave the audience with an idea of the premise and stakes. That’s it. This isn’t the place for backstory, secret motives, or why you wrote the book.” —Amy Collins from “The Four Elements”

“I believe I have a career as an essayist because of how I have learned to end my stories. This is where you deliver your gift: the clear, emotional destination toward which your essay is moving. This is where you answer the reader’s question: Why have you told me this story?” —William Kenower from “A Good Ending”

“Remember that when you’re writing that first thing, you’re in an incredibly precious time. When you’re writing that book or that early story, write for yourself first and foremost. There’s going to come a time when that won’t be the case anymore, when there are going to be all these people who are involved. So, don’t be in any great hurry to publish or to get it out there into the world. Take your time to hone and craft that first book. Appreciate those early years where you’re writing for yourself because it never is quite the same once you start publishing.” —Brandon Taylor from “The WD Interview”

(Get the May/June 2023 issue of Writer’s Digest here.)

July/August 2023: Creating Structure

“Emptying your mind lowers obstacles and frees creative thought. We live in a world where we push ourselves to accomplish so much each day, almost per hour, including writing. Stopping that momentum periodically is medicinal and crumbles walls you may not even know you had.” —C. Hope Clark from “The Right vs. Left Brain Dilemma”

“There’s no need to plan everything out beforehand. Part of the fun is setting up high stakes without knowing the outcome. This way you’ll be right there with your protagonist, struggling to come up with solutions, even as the walls close in deliciously around you.” —Julia Bartz from “Writers on Writing”

“Just because we are aware of the need for the inciting incident doesn’t mean we shouldn’t spend the time carefully crafting how we arrive at this point.” —Ran Walker from “This Changes Everything”

“Let’s face it, there are people who want to be famous. There are people who want to be rich. And I always warn them, neither of those is likely to happen. It could happen, but this is a hard way to do it. You should learn to play guitar and go burn your amps on stage. It can be difficult, but we can’t stop ourselves. When you know someone who cannot not do it, that’s some sacred thing.” —Luis Alberto Urrea from “The WD Interview”

(Get the July/August 2023 issue of Writer’s Digest here.)

September/October 2023: Facing the Mysterious

“Landing an agent or book deal is a huge accomplishment but it isn’t a happily ever after thing. It’s the start of a business venture with peaks and valleys. If you continue to grow as a writer, ‘hook’ generator, and entrepreneur, you have a chance at a long career.” —Connor Eck from “Writer’s Digest 2023 Annual Literary Agent Roundup”

“Not all reveals serve the story best if maintained throughout; sometimes you gain more narrative mileage by spilling the beans sooner, so readers see the aftereffects of the secret and its impact on the characters and story.” —Tiffany Yates Martin from “The Big Reveal”

“We have to get lost in the forests. We have to allow for the ugliness. We have to invite it, even. In the early drafts, your characters may reveal themselves to you in flashes, whispers, or echoes as you chase them through the trees. They might be lost in the mist themselves. It’s OK not to see them yet through the fog. That’s part of the process.” —Jennifer Givhan from “Writing Our Way Into (and out of) Dark Forests”

“I like to read craft books myself and I find value in them. Whether you’re talking Stephen King, Lawrence Block, Anne Lamott … these are books that even if I don’t agree with every piece of, that’s fine. It’s weird that people who don’t agree decide it’s bad advice. It’s just advice that isn’t for you.” —Chuck Wendig from “The WD Interview”

(Get the September/October 2023 issue of Writer’s Digest here.)

November/December 2023: Making Readers Laugh

“It helps to think of your first few books as a hobby, not a business. People will spend hundreds on a hobby with no expectation of making it back, but authors think $250 for a book cover is wasting money. Just because you can indie publish for free doesn’t mean you should. Put money into a hobby account while you’re still writing so you can pay for an inexpensive cover and editing when the time comes.” —Roland Denzel from “IndieLab”

“Effective humor has everything to do with your knowledge of the subject—in order to make fun of something effectively, you have to understand it on a fairly deep level. But the other aspect of effective humor is shared knowledge—your audience has to know as much about your subject as you do, or the jokes will fall flat.” —Jeff Somers from “From the Heart”

“There are two reasons I support mistake-making. First, we know that failure means we tried. It also means if the mistake is wrong enough, we can make someone laugh.” —Jorjeana Marie from “The First Laugh”

“When you are revising your work, it’s a long path to go from conception to a finished project. A lot of times, there’s a lot of feedback along the way, or you are not sure how to change it, how to improve it, how to do X, Y, and Z. Once you get a little more professional, people are saying things like, ‘Well, this really has to fit more into the thriller format.’ Sometimes, what they’re telling you actually is right, and you have to be as flexible as you can in hearing the feedback you’re getting. But the thing I always say to writers is that you never should forget the flame that made you want to write this.” —Jean Kwok from “The WD Interview”

(Get the November/December 2023 issue of Writer’s Digest here.)

The post 23 Best Writing Quotes From Writer’s Digest Magazine in 2023 appeared first on Writer's Digest.

(Subscribe to future issues of Writer’s Digest here.)

As a writer, it’s exciting to get advice from actual literary agents and editors, for sure. But as a reader (and well, writer too), I love getting tips, tricks, and insight from the likes of Ian McEwan, Susan Cain, Marlon James, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Tiffany D. Jackson, Ursula Vernon, Sonali Dev, and so many others.

So I decided to share my experience a little bit by highlighting 22 writing and publishing quotes from the print magazine in 2022. When you get a moment, try reading through all the issues as well and look forward to more great advice in 2023!

January/February 2022: Find Success in 2022

“The only way to become a writer is to be a reader first. Read diligently, widely, and voraciously—especially in your genre. The lessons will seep in over time and make you a stronger writer.” —Nita Prose from “Breaking In”

“I’ve had the same habits forever. I write mornings, five days a week. Do that, and every few years, you have enough for a book.” —Andre Dubus III from “Dig In or Cut Yourself Free”

“Writing a novel is like embarking on a road trip. There’s a beginning, middle, end, and—more importantly—a journey occurring all the while.” —E. L. Tenenbaum from “Eyes on the Road!”

“I think the thing that is most helpful to me now at this point in my career is not overthinking things and just putting yourself on the page. Not thinking about the market, and not thinking about the book that you read last week that was really good and why didn’t you write that book, and not thinking about will people think I’m stupid if I say this. There are so many things you can worry about when you’re writing that are all irrelevant. Two people can write the same book and it’d be two completely different books. The important thing is a book that you write is your book and it’s you, and you put yourself into it and don’t listen to any of the interference from anywhere else in the world.” —Lisa Jewell from “The WD Interview”

(Get the January/February 2022 issue of Writer’s Digest here.)

March/April 2022: Exploring Point of View

“My agent actually said to me when I first turned this manuscript in: ‘You always know when you’ve really hit it in a manuscript when the people who read it start telling you their own personal stories that they thought about in reaction to your book.’ They’re not talking anymore about the story you’ve told; they’re talking about their own story. There’s something you’ve written that’s made it personal to them.” —Susan Cain from “The Beauty in the Bittersweet”

“Don’t romanticize writing. It’s like exercise. You get better if you do it every day.” —Tanya McKinnon from “Meet the Agent”

“I think what sometimes goes wrong with world-building is that people spend too much time on it. Build to the point of where it’s of use to the character, otherwise you fall into exposition.” —Marlon James from “The WD Interview”

(Get the March/April 2022 issue of Writer’s Digest here.)

May/June 2022: Tech for Writers

“Embrace the one-sentence pitch.” —Stephanie Delman from “Meet the Agent”

“Have fun with the writing process. Writing is the only thing you have any control over.” —Adam Oyebanji from “Breaking In”

“You need to give yourself permission to be bad when you are drafting. That reason that’s so important is because a lot of writers, especially when you’re starting out, have that little voice in your head that says, ‘This is so terrible. Why did I think I could write a book? I can’t ever show this to anyone.’ They let that voice get so loud that they don’t end up writing anything. This is where you need to embrace the suck. Let yourself be bad. It’s OK. Everybody’s first drafts are bad. My first drafts are terrible, but once you have a bad first draft down, you can fix it. You can edit it, you can polish it up, but you can’t get anything done if you don’t shut that voice down and get those words out.” —Kate Quinn from “The WD Interview”

(Get the May/June 2022 issue of Writer’s Digest here.)

July/August 2022: At a Crossroads

“Book two was the hardest thing I’ve had to do in my professional career, as an author or otherwise. Far worse than getting my first one-star review.” —Heather Chavez from “Lessons From Book Two”

“Remember that publishing is a business. The end goal is to make money. Yes, we write for the love and the art of it all. But love doesn’t pay the bills. Love the art. Work the business.” —Nikesha Elise Williams from “IndieLab | Author Spotlight”

“Spend as much time reading books you hate as books you love. And figure out exactly why you hate them. And I don’t mean thinking, Oh, the characters aren’t fleshed out and moving on. What about the characters aren’t fleshed out … And how would you fix those problems if you were the author? The way I learned to tell stories was by figuring out what I did and didn’t like as a reader and then practicing it in my writing.” —Katalina Gamarra from “Breaking In”

“But it’s important to remember that you have to have metrics of success that are not dependent on the outside world. They have to be more internal things. And by that, I mean, you can’t say, ‘Well, my worth as a human being is determined by the worth of my rate-per-word,’ you know? If I’m worth only 2 cents per word, then I am not very valuable versus if I’m worth a dollar per word. You can’t go that way because that will be just psychologically incredibly damaging.” —Silvia Moreno-Garcia from “The WD Interview”

(Get the July/August 2022 issue of Writer’s Digest here.)

September/October 2022: Sinister Stories

“As advice for myself—write the stuff you’re excited by, write the book where you can hear the dialogue in your head, write it down now while it’s still exciting. Write the scenes you know and string them together later. Don’t worry about how well it will sell. Don’t even worry about the end or how it will all hang together. The books you’re excited by rarely let you down.” —Ursula Vernon (aka T. Kingfisher) from “Words Always Come First”

“Children’s horror isn’t truly about scaring kids. It’s about giving them a safe place to explore their own fears and—most importantly—learn how to cope with them.” —Alex R. Kahler (aka K.R. Alexander) from “Writers on Writing”

“As a reporter, if I only wrote whenever I felt inspired, I would have gotten fired. Which is why, when writing this novel, I never waited for inspiration to strike. I wrote a bit every day—sometimes as little as 300 words—and trusted that if I kept showing up, the work would eventually improve.” —Tracey Lien from “Breaking In”

“I don’t walk into books with a message in mind. I typically walk in with the actual problem, the plot itself, and then as we’re going through the motions of the story, the message, honestly, it presents itself.” —Tiffany D. Jackson from “The WD Interview”

(Get the September/October 2022 issue of Writer’s Digest here.)

November/December 2022: Writing THE END

“At its very heart, I believe there is only one story arc in the world: There’s a character in an uncomfortable situation and they must find a way to resolve it.” —Sonali Dev from “Writers on Writing”

“Get creative. I love reading queries that blend interesting comps to give me an immediate idea of what their story is like. I am always looking for pitches that feel as exciting and enticing as book jackets.” —Alexandra Weiss from “Meet the Agent”

“Figure out which secrets you want to keep and which you want to slowly unveil to others or just to yourself.” —Su Cho from “Breaking In”

“Short stories are great for throwing off the influence of others and finding your own core. But maybe most important of all, they teach you something about the value of readerly curiosity and how to instill it.” —Ian McEwan from “The WD Interview”

(Get the November/December 2022 issue of Writer’s Digest here.)

The post 22 Writing Quotes From Writer’s Digest Magazine in 2022 appeared first on Writer's Digest.

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So I recently took some time to re-read all the Writer’s Digest magazine issues of 2021, and it was an incredible experience. There’s so much advice packed into each issue, but reading them all at once just compounds the advice and reminds me of lessons I’d already learned earlier in the year.

Anyway, I wanted to share my experience a little bit by highlighting some quotes from writers, editors, agents, and other publishing professionals. When you get a moment, try reading through all the issues as well and look forward to more great advice in 2022!

January/February 2021: New Year, New Perspectives

“Empty space is helpful.” —Yangsze Choo from “Yangsze Choo: Memories of Malaya”

“If you don’t quit, you will succeed.” —Don Vaughan from “The Seven Pillars of Freelance Success”

“While I continue to write with specific ideas in mind, I am accepting that it’s not always possible to know what will stick with my readers.” —Peace Adzo Medie from “Discovering the Humor in My Novel”

“There is no rule that says you have to stop promoting your book because everyone else has, or it didn’t have a strong first week of sales, or it only got two reviews. None of that matters.” —Rachel Menard from “IndieLab”

“Give us your characters, the conflict, and sink it with a great line that makes me want to read more.” —Zabé Ellor from “Meet the Agent”

“I wish I’d written more and worried less.”  —Meg LaTorre from “Breaking In”

“Our work can open hearts and minds, build empathy, and spark meaningful conversations. What we create on the page can change the world.” —Nancy Johnson from “Breaking In”

“Don’t live or write in a bubble. My creativity is fueled when I talk with other creative people.” —Melissa Croce from “Breaking In”

“Without enough scene variation, your writing can feel sluggish, even when the actual scene is describing important character epiphanies or intense battle sequences.” —Diana M. Pho from “A New View”

“All the experts agree that the best deals to be found outside of the U.S. are in the German and U.K. markets, and Europe in general, where book buying is still a booming business.” —Jordan Rosenfeld from “Foreign Rights Sales”

“Agents spend about 90 percent of their time pitching.” —Sam Hiyate from “Foreign Rights Sales”

“When you see your cover in a foreign language, it’s so exciting to see what they came up with. I was dancing on the ceiling.” —Stacey Marie Brown from “Foreign Rights Sales”

“Translations are a delicate art.” —Griffin Suber from “Finding the Words”

“Part of the attraction of freelance work is the freedom—the ability to be your own boss, make your own hours, and fire clients at will. But when you have a client that makes up 40, 50, or 60 percent of your income, how can you possibly ever say no to that client?” —Jeff Somers from “Losing the Big One”

“The first sentence has to have a solid punch.” —Steve Berry from “Twisty Business”

“Setting is crucial in providing those heart-stopping moments that come when a reader leaves the safety of her own home and enters the book.” —Sam Boush from “Twisty Business”

“Nobody is perfect, in fiction or real life, and people with problems tend to be more interesting to read and write about.” —Alice Feeney from “Twisty Business”

“These people aren’t trying to save the world, or prevent an assassination, or win a war. They’re fighting for their careers, their marriages, their kids, their lives. These are predicaments we can all relate to, stakes we can imagine as our own, triumphs we can share.” —Chris Pavone from “Twisty Business”

“Figure out what your characters love and need and want, and then methodically take it all away from them.” —Blake Crouch from “Twisty Business”

“I love it when an author plants a question in my mind and keeps me guessing about the answer. … As a writer, I try to lead my readers through the narrative with the same sense of intrigue.” —Ruth Ware from “Twisty Business”

“A good twist should never leave the readers feeling tricked.” —Simon Gervais from “Twisty Business”

“A satisfying ending is not only about that final moment, but the journey to get there.” —Megan Miranda from “Twisty Business”

“Twenty years of rejection and misery and isolation was a terrible experience. But on the positive side of that, I came out focused on the writing, thinking that the writing was what mattered.” —Viet Thanh Nguyen from “The WD Interview: Viet Thanh Nguyen”

“I can never say it enough, but the query can be broken down into: the hook, the book, and the cook.” —Barbara Poelle from “Funny You Should Ask”

“Don’t rush the inciting incident.” —Jeanne Veillette Bowerman from “Take Two”

“If you have a seemingly brilliant idea for a book, knowing that there is an audience for it and who that audience is can not only provide motivation for you to continue writing, but it can also help you organize your book.” —Amy Jones from “Notes From the Margins”

“I’ve had so many people tell me over the years that I didn’t have the qualities needed to be a writer. All of my writer friends and I have one thing in common: We didn’t listen to the naysayers. We kept writing. And eventually we have all been published.” —Devi S. Laskar from “Four Reasons Why This Can Be Your Year to Find Publishing Success”

“Believing in your own voice and your own story is incredibly important for finding success as a writer.” —Robert Lee Brewer from “Four Reasons Why This Can Be Your Year to Find Publishing Success”

“Your readers are out there. You just have to believe and work like hell and never, ever give up. Especially not on yourself. You have to be your story’s greatest champion.” —Jennifer Givhan from “Four Reasons Why This Can Be Your Year to Find Publishing Success”

“Whether you consider yourself a newbie or seasoned writing professional, it’s important to note that relationships should always have a reciprocal element.” —Kristy Stevenson from “Building Community”

(Get the January/February 2021 issue of Writer’s Digest here.)

March/April 2021: Getting Personal

“In terms of writing the story, for me it’s about having fun with the topic.” —Adam Hargreaves from “Mr. Successful”

“Being a columnist gives you smooth sailing on the choppy seas of freelance journalism.” —Frank Hyman from “Columns: The Pillars of Every Periodical”

“I stared at the headline on my computer screen, my face flush with embarrassment. It was still dark outside in the predawn of March 29, 2013, the day when my dreams of becoming a well-known writer came true. Indeed, by the time the sun came up, my work had reached millions. And I couldn’t stop crying.” —Barbara Neal Varma from “Anonymous Fame”

“The more I suffered through writing about my experiences—re-triggering myself at every turn—the more I realized that, at least at the moment, I don’t want to tell some of those stories. I’ve always felt as if I was compelled to. Now I’m fairly certain I’m not.” —Sari Botton from “Writers on Writing”

“Know the market, know which books are compatible or comparable with yours, and state the case convincingly for ‘why’ yours.” —Lisa DiMona from “Meet the Agent”

“I like to imagine my inner critics as mini-ogres, with sour faces, crossed arms, and goofy hats labeled ‘fear,’ ‘doubt,’ and ‘meanness.'” —Sharon Short from “Character Motivation”

“With my self-published books, I use an aggregator to simply my record keeping and my life.” —L. Penelope from “IndieLab”

“Here’s a quick thought experiment: You’re offered two writing jobs. Job A pays a dollar a word. Job B pays ten cents a word. Which should you take? Whatever answer you gave is wrong, because you don’t have enough information.” —Jeff Somers from “The Matrix: How to Determine Your Worth as a Freelancer”

“There’s a difference between being a great writer and a great storyteller. Reading helps with both, but craft books and methodology will really help with the latter.” —Ciannon Smart from “Breaking In”

“Historical fiction requires extensive research, and the support of a copy editor is heaven.” —Denny S. Bryce from “Breaking In”

“Be nice to yourself. Celebrate the writing you do. But if you’re stuck or can’t write, who cares? Take breaks to pay attention to the things around you—that’s part of the work. You’ll write when it’s time. You’re still a writer, even if you’re not writing.” —Lisa Summe from “Breaking In”

“Everything that happens to us, every failure and success, every kiss we give or receive, every meal we eat, every trip we take, is potential material.” —William Kenower from “Author vs. Character”

“Isn’t writing your memoir just like writing an extended version of your diary? Actually, it isn’t.” —Sharon McDonnell from “Writing Your Memoir”

“Defamation is an umbrella term for libel (written defamation) and slander (oral). Defamation is a false statement of fact that injures a person’s reputation.” —Amy Cook from “About Us”

“Sex is generally a private encounter. We’re literally naked and we’re doing things we don’t generally do with an audience. In some cultures, we’re even taught to not talk about it or even not do it. Those are the practical reasons why it’s such a hard thing to write about.” —Elizabeth Benedict from “The Words and the Bees”

“Physical order can promote mental and spiritual order. An uncluttered space is an invitation, like a fresh notebook.” —Elizabeth Sims from “The Time and Energy Game”

“In the virtual space, fun matters more than ever.” —Jessica Strawser from “The Art of the Multi-Author Event”

“I decided I wanted to do events with an eclectic group of writers I like and admire, from mega-bestselling commercial authors to literary superstars. I knew they’d be a draw for my audience and that we’d have lots to talk about. And we did.” —Christina Baker Kline from “The Art of the Multi-Author Event”

“A reader may come to hear or see one author and then end up trying out books by all the other authors. I think that happens a lot.” —David Bell from “The Art of the Multi-Author Event”

“Every genre offers different ways of untangling bits of the human experience. Horror is good at figuring out, what are we afraid of? And a good horror story, regardless of how it does it, gets at the heart of some fear or anxiety that we have, or that people have.” —Carmen Maria Machado from “The WD Interview: Carmen Maria Machado”

“Trends, generally speaking, are usually ignited in two specific beats on a publishing timeline: When a novel is shopped and at point of publication.” —Barbara Poelle from “Funny You Should Ask”

“There are two kinds of readers: the ones who read a book all the way through, and the ones who are always in the middle of several.” —Sophie Newman from “On Changing Genres”

“The number-one flaw in any screenplay is an uninteresting and passive protagonist.” —Jeanne Veillette Bowerman from “Take Two”

“There’s a story in everyone; your job is to figure out how to make it meaningful to someone else.” —Robert Lee Brewer from “Six Personal Essay Markets for Writers”

(Get the March/April 2021 issue of Writer’s Digest here.)

May/June 2021: Sparking Curiosity

“Writing mentors can have much to offer, but often their greatest gift is years of professional experience.” —Don Vaughan from “The Value of Experience: How Mentors Help Writers”

“I couldn’t get my hands on enough books about how other writers became successful; I was hungry to know their process. As a young writer, I spent a lot of time in the 808 section of the library.” —Donna Gephart from “The Value of Experience: How Mentors Help Writers”

“Often I see better ways of working. As with any serious craft, you should never stop learning.” —Mark Bowden from “The Value of Experience: How Mentors Help Writers”

“Beginning writers are often looking for a secret that will make them rich and famous. That usually means chasing the market and imitating another author. In that case, I don’t know how to help. My advice always starts with: ‘Be a first-rate version of yourself and not a second-rate version of someone else.” —David Morrell from “The Value of Experience: How Mentors Help Writers”

“Although there is no universally accepted joke periodic table, humor writing has structure and formula that anyone can master.” —Mark Shatz from “To Write Funny, You Must Think Funny”

“While I enjoyed my Sunday Funday beer buzz, I was also hyperaware of the fact that I had just spent four hours in a pub. Talking about how I don’t have time to write. In those four hours, the sunny afternoon turned into haunting dusk as I went from sober to buzzed. For the first time, drinking seemed pointless. Alcohol felt like an unnecessary hurdle that I kept putting in my way.” —Tawny Lara from “How Sobriety Made Me a Better Writer”

“One of the things I love most about writing historical fiction is the initial sensation when my curiosity is piqued, when I stumble across a person or event in history and immediately feel an urge to delve into the historical record.” —Chanel Cleeton from “Writers on Writing”

“From my experience in writing in all sorts of settings (about all sorts of settings), I’ve concluded that a good setting for creative writing must be functional, healthful, and inspiring.” —Sharon Short from “Setting”

“One of the many uses of metadata is in helping readers, customers, or information seekers of any kind find what they are looking for.” —L. Penelope from “Minding Your Metadata”

“It’s usually OK to use a portion of someone else’s work for educational purposes or news reporting, as long as you’re taking the smallest amount necessary to make your point. Writers get into trouble when their entire work is based on someone else’s copyrighted work.” —Amy Cook from “Fair Use”

“Keep it short—if you can’t summarize your book in one paragraph, you may not quite know yourself what it’s about.” —Markus Hoffman from “Meet the Agent”

“Find the people who cheer you on, lift you up, help you grow, and provide a safe space to vent. My writing friends have been essential to my success.” —Mia P. Manansala from “Breaking In”

“Read a lot, both in your genre and out of it.” —Brandie June from “Breaking In”

“Figure out the heart of the story after your first draft.” —Brenda Peynado from “Breaking In”

“There is good procrastination and bad procrastination.” —Michael La Ronn from “The Curiously Effective Way to Beat Procrastination”

“Leaving something up to the imagination invites participation from the reader and defies topes of a too-perfect conclusion.” —Jordan Rosenfeld from “Open Endings”

“When thinking about how to nest your character motivations, one thing to consider is how permanent those motivations should be.” —Jeff Somers from “The Russian Nesting Doll Theory of Motivation”

“I am usually three-quarters of way into a book before I know the ending.” —Chris Bohjalian from “The WD Interview: Chris Bohjalian”

“A book review is not a summary. It’s not a report. It’s a conversation.” —Sam Risak from “The Benefits of Writing Book Reviews”

“Liking is not the point. It’s whether the book is successful or not.” —Katherine Coldiron from “The Benefits of Writing Book Reviews”

“If you want to participate in the big conversation of literary criticism, you should be an avid consumer of reviews. It should be part of your oxygen.” —Tom Zoellner from “The Benefits of Writing Book Reviews”

“Reviewing makes me read deeply and think about the writers’ choices.” —Liz Harmer from “The Benefits of Writing Book Reviews”

“I often use theme as my North Star to guide me back to the essence of my story.” —Sadie Dean from “How Do I (Quickly) Write a Screenplay?”

(Get the May/June 2021 issue of Writer’s Digest here.)

July/August 2021: Writing for Change

“I don’t want to romanticize being a writer, but sometimes it truly feels as though getting to work on this book felt like an act of reclamation.” —Kat Chow from “Appease the Spirit”

“No one can chart a writer’s individual journey. Each writer must do that respectively.” —Audrey Wick from “Writing After Trauma”

“If you can handle criticism and learn from it, your work will improve.” —Alison Hill from “Rejection With a Suggestion”

“Writing for social justice, one has the charge to not only inspire compassion, but action, and, hopefully, change.” —Catherine Coleman Flowers from “Listening and Writing for Social Justice”

“Stay current on what’s happening in the world and not only on your small portion of it.” —Tricia Skinner from “Meet the Agent”

“I find description to be one of the most challenging writing craft tools because it often leads me to second guess what I’ve written.” —Sharon Short from “Description”

“Let’s face it, books are judged by their covers.” —Whitney Hill from “Success by Design”

“I was suddenly hit with three terms that seemed interchangeable: pitch, query, and proposal.” —Amy Jones from “Pitch vs. Query vs. Proposal”

“I learned that I can fail and still have the strength to try again.” —Elizabeth Gonzalez James from “Breaking In”

“I was enthusiastic about taking feedback from my agent and my editor and doing the work to get my novel into shape.” —Sarah Zachrich Jeng from “Breaking In”

“Be honest and don’t worry about what other people think.” —David Poses from “Breaking In”

“Reaching that point—the edge—and moving past it might well result in a spectacular crash. That, or just maybe a soaring flight to the heights of success, which is what we all hunger for.” —Elizabeth Sims from “The Quest for the Edge”

“Honesty matters when you are telling lies.” —Syed Masood from “Tightrope Writer”

“Remember that the most effective characters are complicated and may have conflicting views about social justice issues.” —David Heska Wanbli Weiden from “Writing to Change the World”

“Inspiration represents the first step to getting readers to do something different. Your book must help readers see new possibilities and get excited about pursuing these aspirations.” —Nina Amir from “Authoring Change, One Book at a Time”

“This is about having an openness to follow the story wherever it takes you—which should be the journalists’ credo anyway.” —Tyler Moss from “Writing Through the Lens of Social Justice”

“Dialogue in writing should always be used strategically. It should convey character details and plot details, not pleasantries and mundane chatter.” —Jordan Rosenfeld from “Get Emotional With Your Characters”

“You don’t have to write every day.” —Jasmine Guillory from “The WD Interview: Jasmine Guillory”

“I started with a sound. I gathered my notebook, sat in the middle of my bed late at night, and listened.” —Deborah Hall from “Whale of a Poem”

“In the moment, writing can feel like a lonely, even isolating activity. But the distance between the lonely act of writing and identity of ‘being a writer’ is the distance between the place where you write and the place where you share what you wrote.” —Mary Mangual from “The Art of Feedback-Giving for Writers”

“A writing partner is a person who will collaborate with you, sharing all responsibilities from idea conception, research, outlining, writing, and re-writing to selling your screenplay.” —Sadie Dean from “Do I Need a Writing Partner?”

(Get the July/August 2021 issue of Writer’s Digest here.)

September/October 2021: Standout Storytelling

“Sometimes a story sings to you. It says, ‘I’m next. I want you. You want me. I’ve got the idea. I can do it! Give me a chance!'” —Jane Yolen from “The Queen of Kidlit”

“Most freelance writers wouldn’t have a career without sources—the experts and real-life individuals that make a story come alive.” —Dinsa Sachan from “How to Tackle Tricky Source Situations”

“I’m always surprised at how many people are willing to share their time, experience, and expertise with me.” —Elizabeth Gardner from “How to Tackle Tricky Source Situations”

“Whether you’re a newbie or a grizzled veteran, a fan of fiction or teller of truths, the reminder to trust the process can be a calming notion to revisit now and again.” —Paul Nicolaus from “Like a Good Pair of Jeans, This Writing Advice Only Gets Better With Time”

“As writers, this is part of the work we do, finding ways to express that which may feel impossible to express.” —Anna-Marie McLemore from “Speaking in Magic”

“Find a passion other than writing that gives you contentment.” —Priya Doraswamy from “Meet the Agent”

“If you master pacing, readers will walk, jog, trot, or run alongside you for the duration of your story and not wander off your story’s path out of exhaustion or boredom.” —Sharon Short from “Pacing”

“Reviews are key to getting the word out about your book and building up social proof both before and after launch.” —Whitney Hill from “Read All About It”

“Just as good fences make good neighbors, good contracts make good working relationships.” —Amy Cook from “Contract Tips and Handling Conflict”

“Learn not to take rejection personally, no matter how much it stings.” —Alda P. Dobbs from “Breaking In”

“‘When in doubt, zone out.’ Taking a breather from your writing can work wonders.” —Sifton Tracey Anipare from “Breaking In”

“Failures can lead to the biggest opportunities.” —Meredith Westgate from “Breaking In”

“Don’t give up, ask questions, learn the industry, attend conferences, join support groups, and understand the business the best you can.” —Analieze Cervantes from “The 2021 Writer’s Digest Annual Literary Agent Roundup”

“Try not to compare yourself to other writers—every writer has a unique path to publication.” —Jennifer Chen Tran from “The 2021 Writer’s Digest Annual Literary Agent Roundup”

“Get comfortable in that liminal waiting space, because the wheels of publishing turn slowly.” —Erin Clyburn from “The 2021 Writer’s Digest Annual Literary Agent Roundup”

“Trust your instincts if something doesn’t feel like a perfect fit.” —Margaret Danko from “The 2021 Writer’s Digest Annual Literary Agent Roundup”

“Think of what you want your book description to read when a reader picks your book up on the shelf or sees it online and write that.” —Jon Michael Darga from “The 2021 Writer’s Digest Annual Literary Agent Roundup”

“You will best write what you feel passionate about writing.” —Naomi Davis from “The 2021 Writer’s Digest Annual Literary Agent Roundup”

“Follow submission guidelines. … Querying is hard enough without disqualifying yourself because of something as simple as following instructions.” —Chelsea Hensley from “The 2021 Writer’s Digest Annual Literary Agent Roundup”

“Just don’t bore me. Please.” —Kima Jones from “The 2021 Writer’s Digest Annual Literary Agent Roundup”

“It’s important for writers to be well-read, have a sense of which books similar to your own have resonated with readers and why, and how your book is different.” —Jody Kahn from “The 2021 Writer’s Digest Annual Literary Agent Roundup”

“I see a lot of nicely written and constructed stories that are tough sells on a conceptual level, so it’s worth meditating deeply on that before putting pen to page.” —Kirby Kim from “The 2021 Writer’s Digest Annual Literary Agent Roundup”

“Be kind! To agents and to yourself.” —Aida Lilly from “The 2021 Writer’s Digest Annual Literary Agent Roundup”

“Take the time to polish the opening pages to really hook the reader. … The majority of your novel might be brilliant, but if the first 10 pages aren’t working. I’ll never know.” —Jennifer March Soloway from “The 2021 Writer’s Digest Annual Literary Agent Roundup”

“It’s OK to slow down.” —Lee O’Brien from “The 2021 Writer’s Digest Annual Literary Agent Roundup”

“Send your query email to yourself first to see what it looks like!” —Crystal Orazu from “The 2021 Writer’s Digest Annual Literary Agent Roundup”

“Write what’s natural to you.” —Jas Perry from “The 2021 Writer’s Digest Annual Literary Agent Roundup”

“The purpose of a query letter is to explain what your book is about—without going into too much detail or giving too much away.” —Zeynep Sen from “The 2021 Writer’s Digest Annual Literary Agent Roundup”

“No one knows your work better than you.” —Stephanie Sinclair from “The 2021 Writer’s Digest Annual Literary Agent Roundup”

“Invest in your structure.” —Monika Woods from “The 2021 Writer’s Digest Annual Literary Agent Roundup”

“Don’t write in total isolation; join a cohort of writers with whom you feel comfortable sharing your work and whose opinions you trust.” —Jade Wong-Baxter from “The 2021 Writer’s Digest Annual Literary Agent Roundup”

“Consider that the person you are sending your work to has read about six dozen emails that day, and who knows how many queries.” —Ayla Zuraw-Friedland from “The 2021 Writer’s Digest Annual Literary Agent Roundup”

“To reveal backstory effectively, you need to first assess which aspects should be revealed. Then you need to determine how best to share that information.” —Jane K. Cleland from “The Art of Revealing Backstory”

“Just because you may have thought up an exhaustive backstory for each character doesn’t mean you have to tell it all to us.” —Neil Nyren from “The Art of Revealing Backstory”

“The way to create suspense is to ask—or imply—a question … and then not answer it until later.” —Lee Child from “The Art of Revealing Backstory”

“Nothing is worse than over-explaining.” —Meredith Anthony from “The Art of Revealing Backstory”

“Avoid the backstory dump at all costs. Readers will see it for what it is: laziness and a writer’s being unprepared.” —David Baldacci from “The Art of Revealing Backstory”

“Too much backstory at the start of a novel can be lethal.” —Hallie Ephron from “The Art of Revealing Backstory”

“Sprinkling in backstory is a great way to intrigue, tease, and surprise readers.” —Kate White from “The Art of Revealing Backstory”

“Every adventure has a price of admission.” —Sam Boush from “How to Plot a Sci-Fi Novel”

“Character is revealed through action, and the best way to give your character lots of things to do is in the hunt for what they desire most in the world.” —Ken Liu from “How to Plot a Sci-Fi Novel”

“On some level, we all have wants or needs that may not be fulfilled and having that be a primary vector in the plot can be a very strong tool to get readers drawn into it—even if we don’t approve of the specific want or need, we recognize that feeling.” —Aliette de Bodard from “How to Plot a Sci-Fi Novel”

“To cross the threshold into the second act, I plot epic revelations, after which my characters begin to understand the extraordinary magnitude of what is happening, what they’re up against, and the epic stakes for which they’re playing.” —Douglas E. Richards from “How to Plot a Sci-Fi Novel”

“The way I do it is if I start to get bored and/or stuck when I’m writing, I just make something (mostly bad) happen to the protagonist.” —John Scalzi from “How to Plot a Sci-Fi Novel”

“I try to think of my book as a series of escalating episodes instead of three acts, which makes the boundaries a bit more porous. Instead of crossing the threshold, I’m simply moving onto the next episode.” —Victoria “V.E.” Schwab from “How to Plot a Sci-Fi Novel”

“Protagonists gotta protag for the reader to hook onto them and want to follow them, and making choices, even small ones, personal ones, reveal them to us and give them agency, even in chaotic big plot circumstances.” —Tobias Buckell from “How to Plot a Sci-Fi Novel”

“After the fun of the second act, it’s time to buckle down and drive your characters toward the conclusion of the story. At this point, they should either choose or be forced into a course of action that ultimately leads to the book’s climax.” —Andy Weir from “How to Plot a Sci-Fi Novel”

“Having written several novels and novellas, I can honestly say that there is a sense of liberation that comes from not having to think about story structure in the most traditional sense.” —Ran Walker from “10 Reasons to Write a 100-Word Story”

“In a memoir as detective novel, the search for the heart of the story is the story.” —Lilly Dancyger from “Memoir as Detective Novel”

“I get so many questions about mentors and for me, it’s: Look sideways. My mentors have been homies.” —Elizabeth Acevedo from “The WD Interview: Elizabeth Acevedo”

“In the months leading up to publication, we are planning and researching and doing our best to create the most successful outing for your novel.” —Barbara Poelle from “Funny You Should Ask”

“Think about all the roles you play in a day and how differently you reveal yourself, to whom, and in what situations.” —Janet Pocorobba from “Stalking the Self: Finding a Point of View in Memoir”

“To help manage line count, skim your screenplay pages for orphans, which is one lone word that wraps to the next line of the paragraph.” —Sadie Dean from “Less Is More on the Page”

“Once again, I was reminded that the business of publishing is always adapting and changing and that you have to adapt and change along with it.” —Deb Caletti from “The Story of Getting a Book Published”

(Get the September/October 2021 issue of Writer’s Digest here.)

November/December 2021: Magical Writing

“Riffing off of mythology in a unique way is not as hard as people think.” —R. F. Kuang from “Wrath of the Gods”

“In my experience, writers tend to be a helpful bunch, but if they’re overly accommodating, they run the risk of derailing their careers.” —Elaine Klonicki from “Healthy Helping”

“But this time, jealousy had put a new but valuable friendship at risk.” —Lillian Yates Duggan from “The Green-Eyed Monster and Me”

“You would think, after almost 30 years of consuming and producing fantasy, I would have a functional beyond-the-dictionary definition of magic, but I totally didn’t.” —Alix E. Harrow from “Writers on Writing”

“Get straight into the plot.” —Rebecca Scherer from “Meet the Agent”

“Revision is most likely where you’ll find your true opening.” —Sharon Short from “Set the Hook With Great Beginnings”

“The more I researched crowdfunding, the more excited I became.” —Christopher Stollar from “How to Crowdfund Your Book”

“Passive income is magic: You do nothing and get paid.” —Jeff Somers from “Royalties: The Long Tail”

“If there was even a slight opening, I put everything I had into it.” —Juhea Kim from “Breaking In”

“Find critique partners who have strengths in areas that aren’t yours.” —Julie Tieu from “Breaking In”

“Be less superstitious. Writers are neurotic. Submit, pitch, and try to engage in less magical thinking about it all. If your work isn’t picked up by one editor, move on to the next without spiraling.” —Rax King from “Breaking In”

“I sometimes wonder how many great novels are sitting in dusty drawers, half-finished, abandoned, perhaps forgotten.” —Grant Faulkner from “The Alchemy Required to Finish a Novel”

“You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it.” —Octavia E. Butler from “The Alchemy Required to Finish a Novel”

“A writer of fiction is an engineer, designer, and manufacturer, all in one. The best are magicians, too, grabbing readers and drawing us into their characters’ triumphs and tribulations.” —Elizabeth Sims from “Behind the Scenes”

“Foreshadowing operates behind a veil, hard to discern and easy to miss, yet satisfyingly evident once whatever has been foreshadowed comes to pass.” —Jane K. Cleland from “Foreshadowing: A Literary Workhorse”

“I believe that every writer who sets out to tell a story engages in the dirty task of world-building, no matter what genre or mode they work in.” —Tobias Buckell from “Building Worlds to Build Better Stories”

“Tropes can be powerful connections, a kind of shared understanding between reader and author from which to build.” —Sarah J. Sover from “Trope: My Favorite Dirty Word”

“The amazing thing about blending genres is that when done cleverly, it can ease the readers of one genre into the waters of another.” —Dan Stout from “Trope: My Favorite Dirty Word”

“Being a contrarian and a redneck, when someone tells me I can’t do something, my first reaction is ‘Oh yeah? Hold my beer.’ Then I go do it.” —John G. Hartness from “Trope: My Favorite Dirty Word”

“A large part of being a good writer, in general, is reading a lot and writing a lot.” —Ran Walker from “Beyond the Twilight Zone”

“I always look for mood first. I want to know how I’m going to make the reader feel.” —Maggie Stiefvater from “The WD Interview: Maggie Stiefvater”

“Sometimes the hardest part of writing is coming to the page.” —Sahalie Angell Martin from “How Surrealism Can Bring a Spark to Your Writing”

“To write a great ending, do your due diligence in crafting sound first and second acts that set up your third act resolution.” —Sadie Dean from “Writing Memorable Cinematic Endings”

(Get the November/December 2021 issue of Writer’s Digest here.)

The post 185 Writing Quotes From Writer’s Digest Magazine in 2021 appeared first on Writer's Digest.

Grant Faulkner and the team at NaNoWriMo have been kind enough to share the following quotes from their NaNoWriMo Pep Talks. From your fellow writers here at Writer’s Digest and at NaNoWriMo, we hope these words help you reach your goals!

Featuring a combination of NaNoWriMo-specific writing advice and motivation, Grant Faulkner, the staff of NaNoWriMo, and the editors of Writer’s Digest have also curated this exclusive set of articles and 30 writing prompts to help first-timers and seasoned Wrimos alike as you embark on your novel-in-a-month journey and beyond.

Click here for your free download!

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(More quotes for writers from many more writers.)

We’ve collected six quotes from a previous Writer’s Digest interview with Updike. In these quotes, Updike covers storytelling, poetry, success, and more.

6 John Updike Quotes for Writers and About Writing

“It never gets easier. But, I’ve written enough now that I wonder if I’m not in danger of having said my say and of repeating myself.”

“It’s a rare life so dull that no crisis ever intrudes.”

“Many are called, few are chosen, but it might be you.”

*****

Enter Writer’s Digest’s Annual Writing Competition featuring nine categories, including rhyming poetry, non-rhyming poetry, personal essay, and more; each with first place prizes of $1,000, second place prizes of $500, third place prizes of $250, and more. Plus, an overall Grand Prize of $5,000, an interview in Writer’s Digest magazine, and more.

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*****

“Poetry makes you a little more sensitive to the word-by-word interest of prose.”

“We’re past the age of heroes and hero kings. If we can’t make up stories about ordinary people, who can we make them up about?”

(Exploring Star Wars and the Hero’s Journey.)

“When I reread myself, it’s the poetry I tend to look at. It’s the most exciting to write, and it’s over the quickest.”

The post 6 John Updike Quotes for Writers and About Writing appeared first on Writer's Digest.

(Sylvia Plath quotes for writers and about writing.)

Former WD Senior Managing Editor Zachary Petit interviewed Ferlinghetti for the 90th anniversary of Writer’s Digest. That’s the source of the following eight Ferlinghetti quotes, which touch on time, craft, passion, and more.

8 Lawrence Ferlinghetti Quotes for Writers and About Writing

“A poem is usually a visual turn-on to begin with, and the idea is to make it into something more than a visual perception.”

“I was writing letters in French; part of my family was French and I was in France for most of my first five years, and when I got separated from my French aunt I used to write her long letters in French. And she considered herself a poet, so I considered myself a poet when I wrote her, and I felt I had to equal her poetry. So that was really the first writing I did.”

“If you’re going to be a writer you should sit down and write in the morning, and keep it up all day, every day.”

*****

Enter Writer’s Digest’s Annual Writing Competition featuring nine categories, including rhyming poetry, non-rhyming poetry, personal essay, and more; each with first place prizes of $1,000, second place prizes of $500, third place prizes of $250, and more. Plus, an overall Grand Prize of $5,000, an interview in Writer’s Digest magazine, and more.

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*****

“I’m really not interested in ‘craft’—I think it’s a miserable word to be applied to poetry.”

“My poetry is definitely figurative.”

“The word great is really overused these days because the English language seems to have a paucity of adjectives.”

“They say that great art is made by hunger and passion.”

“Time wears down the pencil.”

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(12 thought-provoking quotes from 1984, by George Orwell.)

The great French thinker was born in Paris on November 21, 1694, and was supposed to become a lawyer (his father’s wishes anyway). But writing spoke to him more than law. On May 30, 1778, he passed away and his remains now rest in the Panthéon in Paris. 

In this post, I’ve collected 10 thoughtful Voltaire quotes for writers and deep thinkers on topics covering money, stupidity, common sense, and more.

10 Thoughtful Voltaire Quotes for Writers and Deep Thinkers

“Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it.”

“Common sense is not so common.”

“Don’t think money does everything or you are going to end up doing everything for money.”

*****

If you love to write and have a story you want to tell, the only thing that can stand between you and the success you’re seeking isn’t craft, or a good agent, or enough Facebook friends and Twitter followers, but fear. Fear that you aren’t good enough, or fear the market is too crowded, or fear no one wants to hear from you. Fortunately, you can’t write while being in the flow and be afraid simultaneously. The question is whether you will write fearlessly.

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*****

“Doubt is an uncomfortable condition, but certainty is a ridiculous one.”

“Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.”

“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.”

“Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.”

“The more often a stupidity is repeated, the more it gets the appearance of wisdom.”

(9 Lines of Writing Advice With Cats.)

“Think for yourself and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so too.”

“Truly, whoever can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

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Then, he began the process of submitting to English publishers and received seven rejections before finally finding acceptance by Rex Collings, who eventually happened to give Watership Down its title. Accepting a long novel about rabbits (one of them with “extra-sensory perception”) and filled with adult themes had even Collings wondering if he had lost his senses in accepting the book, but it ultimately turned out to be an excellent move.

Watership Down won several awards, including the Carnegie Medal and Guardian Prize. It’s been adapted into animated films, animated TV series, plays, and even inspired a role-playing game called Bunnies & Burrows. The epic adventure surrounding a group of rabbits and other animals has excited the imaginations of children and adults alike since its initial publication in November of 1972.

(12 magical quotes from The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.)

Here are 10 epic quotes from Watership Down that involve danger, friendship, fate, and more.

10 epic quotes from Watership Down, by Richard Adams

“A rabbit has two ears; a rabbit has two eyes, two nostrils. Our two warrens ought to be like that. They ought to be together—not fighting.”

“All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you.”

“Can you run? I think not.”

*****

When you take this online writing workshop, you’ll discover your voice, learn the basics of grammar and examine the different types of writing. No matter what type of writing you’re planning on crafting—nonfiction or fiction—you’ll need guidance along the way.

Click to continue.

*****

“For the first time, Hazel began to realize how much they had left behind.”

“I think we ought to do all we can to make these creatures friendly. It might turn out to be well worth the trouble.”

“I’d rather succeed in doing what we can than fail to do what we can’t.”

“It’s a man thing.”

(Fable vs. Parable vs. Allegory.)

“There isn’t any danger here, at this moment. But it’s coming—it’s coming. Oh, Hazel, look! The field! It’s covered in blood!”

“They forgot the ways of wild rabbits.”

“We all have to meet our match sometime or other.”

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