I’ll turn him into a flea, a harmless, little flea, and then I’ll put that flea in a box, and then I’ll put that box inside of another box, and then I’ll mail that box to myself, and when it arrives, I’ll smash it with a hammer! It’s brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, I tell you! Genius I say! Or, to save on postage, I’ll just poison him with this.- Yzma, Emperor’s New Groove
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Readers take in dialogue one thought at a time. A frequent mistake of beginners is to combine thoughts, which may be suitable for other forms of writing but not for dialogue. Another mistake is speechifying. Three sentences at a time is tops, yet many beginners write speeches that go on and on. – Sol Stein
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A little story is supported by a lot of untold backstory. What they get is more than what they see. – Karen Lord
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Creating characters is like throwing together ingredients for a recipe. I take characteristics I like and dislike in real people I know, or know of, and use them to embellish and define characters. – Cassandra Clare
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I think the hardest part of writing anything is getting exposition out easily, without hitting people over the head with it. – Jillian Bell
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Not all readers are satisfied by the “And then the wizard saved the day!” plot point. Some want to understand the magic. They want to know its boundaries, see its limitations, and be able to anticipate the main character’s struggle. – Moriah Richard
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The world doesn’t fully make sense until the writer has secured his version of it on the page. And the act of writing is strangely more lifelike than life. – Betsy Lerner
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History is made not simply with events, but by remembering those events. A double drumbeat like a heartbeat. History can be written not only with books, but with ceremonies. – Christopher Bram
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