Writing Classes with The Writer's Workshop

Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I'm always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it's very shocking to the system.

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”

“One false word, one extra word, and somebody's thinking about how they have to buy paper towels at the store.”

Ultimately, literature is nothing but carpentry. With both you are working with reality, a material just as hard as wood.

I was trying to write then and I found the greatest difficulty was to put down what really happened in action; what the actual things were which produced the emotion that you experienced…the real thing, the sequence of motion and fact which made the emotion and which would be as valid in a year or ten years or, with luck and if you stated it purely enough, always.