Using language like jungle growth isn't the solution to telling a story. Votes: 9
Obscenities are too often used for shock value, as a kind of shorthand for real expression of emotion. You've got to scale down your monstrosities. A scream is not a discovery. Votes: 7
What a strange thing it is to recognize a sound like the shriek of a wounded animal, when you've never heard the shriek of a wounded animal. Votes: 6
Uninvited criticism is insult. Votes: 3
Plot does not simply move with time, but spreads out conceptually in metaphorical space. Votes: 3
Nothing on earth in fiction is less interesting than characters under the influence of alcohol. Votes: 3
There's something about a parenthesis in fiction that puts one off, saying, "It's me, moi, jumping in now." Votes: 2
Our salvation never comes in the form we would have chosen. Votes: 0
You must get beyond divertissement, sketch, anecdote, the interesting moment. You must get to the mystery of human personality. What is the line of the story that leads us to a point where we see or intuit something we haven't before? Votes: 0
A short story is a writer's way of thinking through experience... Journalism aims at accuracy, but fiction's aim is truth. The writer distorts reality in the interest of a larger truth. Votes: 0
Sometimes, in that darkness, there is a single act of love, some selfless gesture, an aspiration, and we see that it's not been all waste, all hopeless, and we can ... well ... go on. Votes: 0
Let good people sin. Give virtue to rotters. Votes: 0