Your protagonist is your reader's portal into the story. The more observant he or she can be, the more vivid will be the world you're creating. They don't have to be super-educated, they just have to be mentally active. Keep them looking, thinking, wondering, remembering.
It's a lot to expect of yourself, to write a novel in a year. Anyway, you don't write a novel, you write a scene, and then another scene.
My house is modern, but I like my writing room to be old fashioned. I write on a little wooden secretary desk.
When working on your own, you can make a choice and find out six months later that you made a bad choice. But when you work with people you trust, who understand your obsessions, you can take risks.
I never know how a novel is going to end, because you don't really know what's going to be at the bottom of a novel until you excavate it.
It's a lot to expect of yourself, to write a novel in a year. Anyway, you don't write a novel, you write a scene, and then another scene.
I think that Oprah's on a mission to improve the lives of the average American in various ways. And one of them is to bring literature to people who would normally not be quite as demanding in their reading tastes, to show them writing that can be more than just entertainment.
As a person with terrible handwriting, I love the computer. I've waited all my life for the computer.
As a person with terrible handwriting, I love the computer. I've waited all my life for the computer.
You start realizing that good prose is crunchy. There's texture in your mouth as you say it. You realize bad writing, bland writing, has no texture, no taste, no corners in your mouth. I'm a great believer in reading aloud.
Most people use twenty verbs to describe everything from a run in their stocking to the explosion of an atomic bomb.
I write every day... I never get ideas unless I'm actually writing. Ideas I get in the shower don't do me any good.
I'm particularly fond of the Mulholland Fountain, at Riverside Drive and Los Feliz Boulevard, when it turns colors at night.
I write every day, including weekends. For writers, there are no weekends. It's just that your family is around, looking mournful, wondering when you're going to pay attention to them.
The thing that makes vivid writing is when the reader is in the body of the story, the body of the character. Things smell like something; there's weather, there's texture, there's light.