Jack R. Hart > Quotes

“exposition is the enemy of narrative. Good exposition provides just enough backstory to explain how the protagonist happens to be in a particular place, at a particular time, with the wants that will lead to the next phase of the story. Thorough reporting produces overwhelming detail. Good storytellers cut through it to create a clear path leading forward.”
― Jack R. Hart, Storycraft: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction

“Perhaps because polish is so visible,” Jon Franklin says, “many people erroneously believe it to be the most important part of writing.” But polish, Franklin adds, is merely “the plaster on the walls of structure.” The proof is in the window of the bookstore down the block. The display of current best sellers no doubt contains several titles by tin-eared pop novelists who wouldn’t recognize a graceful sentence if it asked them to dance. The likes of Jean Auel and Tom Clancy sell books by the millions because they understand story structure, a point that’s lost on the critics who savage their syntax.”
― Jack R. Hart, Storycraft: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction

“as the Charles Dickens formula for success has it: “Make them laugh. Make them cry. But, most of all, make them wait.”6”
― Jack R. Hart, Storycraft: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction

“Readers know full well that when a writer takes pains to tell them a character doesn’t expect the worst, she’s about to get it.”
― Jack R. Hart, Storycraft: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction

“that a principal “obstacle to writing improvement is our tendency to dwell on either the final results or the mental origins of writing to the exclusion of the activity of writing, as if an empty gap separated writing from thinking.”
― Jack R. Hart, A Writer's Coach: An Editor's Guide to Words That Work

“Even the little bit that must be known will block easy entry to the story if it delays the action line. The secret, Hunter Thompson said, is to “blend, blend, blend.” You launch action immediately and then blend the exposition into it, submerging it in modifiers, subordinate clauses, appositives, and the like.”
― Jack R. Hart, Storycraft: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction

“Charles Dickens formula for success has it: “Make them laugh. Make them cry. But, most of all, make them wait.”6 The”
― Jack R. Hart, Storycraft: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction

“Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting, and doing the things historians usually record; while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry, and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is the story of what happens on the banks. Historians are pessimists because they ignore the banks for the river.”
― Jack R. Hart, Storycraft: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction

“the protagonist-complication-resolution model for story. You see it in various forms. Philip Gerard, who writes both novels and book-length narrative nonfiction, says a story follows when “a character we care about acts to fulfill his desires with important consequences.”
― Jack R. Hart, Storycraft: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction

“The pain of writing stems from comparing your blank screen with the finished pages you see all around you. But beautiful writing is built one step at a time, just like a house. Take the steps slowly, break them down into pieces small enough to handle easily, and the agony will disappear.”
― Jack R. Hart, Wordcraft: The Complete Guide to Clear, Powerful Writing