Dwight V. Swain > Quotes

“To be a writer, a creative person, you must retain your ability to react uniquely. Your feelings must remain your own. The day you mute yourself, or moderate yourself, or repress your proneness to get excited or ecstatic or angry or emotionally involved...that day, you die as a writer.”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“But emotion, for most people, too often is like some sort of slumbering giant, lulled to sleep by preoccupation with the dead facts of that outer world we call objective. When we look at a painting, we see a price tag. A trip is logistics more than pleasure. Romance dies in household routine. Yet life without feeling is a sort of death.”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“A story is the record of how somebody deals with danger.”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“the writer is driven by his need to escape the limits of a too-small world, the World That Is. It’s in his blood to range farther than life can ever let him go.”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“But as Mark Twain once observed, the difference between the right word and the almost right word is as the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. So do strive for that right word!”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“..feeling is the place every story starts.”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“Writing is a lonely business.”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“There is really no such thing as the novel,” observes novelist Vincent McHugh. “The novel is always a novel—the specific problem, the particular case, the concrete instance.”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“One further observation: The singular of a noun is almost always stronger than the plural. Cattle (plural, please note) may create an image of sorts as they mill restlessly. But for vivid impression, nail your picture down to some individual animal, at least in part—the bellow of a mossy-horned old steer, the pawing of a bull, a wall-eyed cow’s panicked lunge. The reason for this, of course, lies in the fact that every group is made up of individuals, and we really falsify the picture when we state that “the crowd roared,” or “the mob surged forward,” or even “the two women chattered on and on.” And while such summary may constitute a valid and useful verbal shorthand, it doesn’t give a truly accurate portrait.”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“In general, the trick is to bring the past forward into the present, so that you describe what happens in past tense instead of past perfect.”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“What makes you think that you could ever write anything worth reading?” Voices like that sap your courage. They drain away your spirit. They make you want to run and hide, or lock a mask over your thoughts and feelings . . . and never, never, never write again. Don’t listen to them.”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“Though rules may shape your story, you yourself must shape the rules. Beware, too, of the other man’s rule. He sees the world through different eyes. Thus, George Abercroft is an action writer. “Start with a fight!” is his motto. And for him, it works.”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“Why do subject and verb become separated? My guess is that occasionally we all tend to get tangled up in the maze of our own thinking. How else can you account for some of the monstrosities you see in print? Here’s an example from a student manuscript: “The girl, in spite of her confusion and the hazard offered by the razor-edged shards of glass from the shattered window, somehow broke free.” Girl is the subject in the above sentence; broke the verb. Yet they’re separated by twenty words of modification, and the separation renders the sentence distracting and confusing. Is the separation needed? Or could our reader perhaps survive a different version: “Confusion seemed to overwhelm her in that moment. The razor-edged shards of glass from the shattered window offered an added hazard. Yet somehow, the girl broke free.”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“To get maximum effect, put adverbs at the beginning or end of the sentence: “Angrily, he walked away.” Or, “He walked away angrily.” Though special cases may justify “He walked angrily away,” or the like, most often the effect of the modifier upon the reader is lost.”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“But emotion, for most people, too often is like some sort of slumbering giant, lulled to sleep by preoccupation with the dead facts of that outer world we call objective. When we look at a painting, we see a price tag. A trip is logistics more than pleasure. Romance dies in household routine. Yet life without feeling is a sort of death. Most of us know this. So, we long wistfully for speeded heartbeat, sharpened senses, brighter colors. This search for feeling is what turns your reader to fiction; the reason why he reads your story. He seeks a reawakening: heightened pulse; richer awareness. Facts are the least of his concern. For them, he can always go to the World Almanac or Encyclopedia Britannica.”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“Denotation means the word’s “actual” or “dictionary” meaning. When, in addition to this “actual” meaning, a word implies or suggests something further, the things it implies or suggests are its connotations. These connotative or implied or associated meanings frequently hold overtones of approval or disapproval; and too often, the overtones outweigh the word’s “actual” meaning. Take a word like propaganda. In simplest terms, it denotes information, put forth in a systematic effort to spread opinions or beliefs. Thus, whether it’s classed as good or bad should depend on whether you agree or disagree with the opinions or beliefs in question.”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“Reaction” is convenient verbal shorthand for “I desire to behave in a particular way.”—I may not act, you understand. But the impulse is with me. If, magically, all my restraints and inhibitions were to vanish, I’d embrace the woman, soothe the dog, throw out the cereal, weep or laugh or throw a temper tantrum.”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“Broadly speaking, the thing you need to avoid is the general as contrasted with the particular (reptile creates a less vivid image than does rattler); the vague as contrasted with the definite (them guys is less meaningful than those three hoods who hang out at Sammy’s poolroom); and the abstract as contrasted with the concrete (to say that something is red tells me less than to state that it’s exactly the color of the local fire truck).”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“Sam sat in the chair.” Incorporate a bit of action into the picture, and impact sharpens: “Sam slumped in the chair,” or “Sam twisted in the chair,” or “Sam rose from the chair,” or “Sam shoved back the chair.” To repeat: Active verbs are what you need . . . verbs that show something happening, and thus draw your reader’s mental image more sharply into focus. For a vivid, vital, forward-moving story, cut the to be forms out of your copy every time you possibly can. “The trooper was pounding” is never as strong as “The trooper pounded.”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“But for now, let’s assume that you’re properly impressed with words’ significance, and therefore stand ready to move on to a related but somewhat more involved aspect of the subject . . . the application of language to the manipulation of reader feelings. Is that important? I won’t kid you. It’s the foundation stone on which you as a writer stand or fall.”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“Same way, blonde is a rather general category. You narrow it when you make the gal a brassy blonde, or a raucous blonde, or a hard-faced blonde, or a blowsy blonde. How about a brassy, raucous, hard-faced, blowsy blonde? Yes, you can run anything into the ground if you really try! So much for adjectives. Adverbs? They modify verbs . . . describe the manner in which an act is performed: angrily, wearily, animatedly, gloomily, delightedly, smilingly. It does get a little tiresome, doesn’t it? Remedy: Wherever practical, substitute action for the adverb. “Angrily, she turned on him”? Or, “Her face stiffened, and her hands clenched to small, white-knuckled fists”? “Wearily, he sat down”? Or, “With a heavy sigh, he slumped into the chair and let his head loll back, eyes closed”? Vividness outranks brevity. At least, sometimes. So much for adverbs. To live through your story, experience it, your reader must capture it with his own senses.”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“Behavior, in turn, seldom stands neutral.”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“How do you master all the varied techniques? By writing stories. Which is to say, by being willing to be wrong. Then, having been wrong, you check back through your stuff for process errors . . . places where you skipped over steps, or went off the path, or started with the road map upside down. Do that enough times, on enough stories, and eventually you’ll learn.”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“In the same way, consider bungalow versus house versus building . . . starlet versus girl versus female . . . Colt versus revolver versus firearm . . . steak versus meat versus food.”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“Feeling tells you what you want to say. Technique gives you tools with which to say it.”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“A story is a succession of motivations and reactions.”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“Things don’t have feelings. Events don’t. Places don’t. But people do. And things and events and places can create feelings in people . . . trigger an amazing range of individual reactions.”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“If that somebody is our focal character, and if he lets go a scream of horror or a gurgle of delight at the sight of the crown jewels or tomorrow’s headlines or a hot-pastrami sandwich, then we have grounds for assuming that something about the item in question is uniquely significant to him. Therefore, until something happens to change our minds, we’ll deal with such fragments with the same degree of attention or consideration he shows . . . use them to measure and judge all the story’s dimensions. As a reader, thus, my attitude toward the rainstorm we cited earlier will be determined by whether the rain helps or handicaps the focal character.”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“And so it goes with words and language. They’re tools. All your writing life, you work with them . . . using them to tie your reader to your story.”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer

“Each story teaches him new tricks . . . brings him new tools, new techniques. Insight continually grows in him, and so does understanding. So, he improves as he goes along . . . seldom falls into the same trap twice.”
― Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer