Libbie Hawker > Quotes

“Still, if I don't believe in the possibility, I might go mad from fear.”
― Libbie Hawker, Daughter of Sand and Stone

“Her voice is still pitched high, thanks to her youth, but it has a certain incipient darkness to it, a low richness that will mature in the coming years to the smoky tones of a priestess or a queen -- a woman of great natural power.”
― Libbie Hawker, Daughter of Sand and Stone

“The character’s flaw will shape every other aspect of your book. The flaw is the engine that drives your entire book, from hooking your reader’s interest to propelling the plot to its climax—so choose your flaw with care, and make it count.”
― Libbie Hawker, Take Off Your Pants! Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing

“Try all you might to learn a woman's place. You have found it already. It is in the desert, with the stars shining on your skin. It is on the back of a camel, with a sword gripped tight in your fist. It is on the throne of Egypt-it is in the reach of your empire-it is in my arms, and in my heart. You made your place, and it is your by right, Zenobia, my love.”
― Libbie Hawker, Daughter of Sand and Stone

“In the dull, persistent beat of her heart, she hears the rhythm of hope. It is faint and thin as a thread, but it is there.”
― Libbie Hawker, Daughter of Sand and Stone

“When the audience understands that the main character has a very serious need to change his own heart and mind, the hook is set, and the audience is irrevocably invested.”
― Libbie Hawker, Take Off Your Pants! Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing

“Nafsha is so concerned with my virginity. I am beginning to think she would wed me herself. Alas, the only tool she might use to make me a woman is her tongue -- and it is far too sharp for me to allow it beneath my skirts.”
― Libbie Hawker, Daughter of Sand and Stone

“We don’t yet know the state of the naturals. Are they friends or foes? None of us can say. We ought to anchor in the bay, as near as we might come to the shore, and bide our time. The naturals will show themselves, soon or late. They know we are here already, or else I’m a virgin girl.”
― Libbie Hawker, Tidewater: A Novel of Pocahontas and the Jamestown Colony

“The Story Core Every compelling story has the following five elements: 1)       A character 2)     The character wants something 3)      But something prevents him from getting what he wants easily 4)     So he struggles against that force 5)     And either succeeds or fails”
― Libbie Hawker, Take Off Your Pants! Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing

“She threw herself across her bed, weeping into a pillow. She knew just what she wanted -- the desire was a fierce ache inside her. But fiercer still was the knowledge that it was beyond the reach of a female.”
― Libbie Hawker, Daughter of Sand and Stone

“Men always laugh whenever a woman says she has political skill. But it's not such a difficult thing to master.”
― Libbie Hawker, Daughter of Sand and Stone

“The struggle to grow, to learn how to be a better”
― Libbie Hawker, Take Off Your Pants! Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing

“A tight pace has nothing to do with explosions or car chases. It has everything to do with creating a compulsion to keep on reading, even when your reader has other things she really ought to be doing.”
― Libbie Hawker, Take Off Your Pants! Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing

“Flop on your back for one man only, or for a hundred—it’s all the same, and every girl does it for pay. Coins in your pocket or a fancy house up on the hill—makes no difference in the end.”
― Libbie Hawker, Mercer Girls

“You might think it’s better to prove to your reader that your book is unlike anything else out there—that this is a totally unique reading experience that doesn’t have any similarity to any other story. I hate to break it to you, but that’s a losing game. Even readers who think they only want to read 100% original fiction, totally unlike anything else that’s ever been done before, are mistaken. The human mind is drawn like a magnet to established story patterns. That’s why the “hero’s journey” pattern of ancient myth has persisted throughout all of human history.”
― Libbie Hawker, Take Off Your Pants! Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing

“and”
― Libbie Hawker, Tidewater: A Novel of Pocahontas and the Jamestown Colony

“Think carefully before you issue me a command, Zenobia. For I will do what you tell me, even if I'm the worst possible man for the job.”
― Libbie Hawker, Daughter of Sand and Stone

“Make your character flawed in a serious, big, scary, potentially life-wrecking way. When you start with a badly flawed character, the arc will be all about correcting that flaw—about your character growing into a better person, the kind of mythic hero archetype he was “meant to be” but couldn’t become until this adventure—the events of your plot—pushed him to change himself for the better.”
― Libbie Hawker, Take Off Your Pants! Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing

“now—yours.”
― Libbie Hawker, Daughter of Sand and Stone

“redacted proposals.”
― Libbie Hawker, Mercer Girls

“Even readers who think they only want to read 100% original fiction, totally unlike anything else that’s ever been done before, are mistaken. The human mind is drawn like a magnet to established story patterns. That’s why the “hero’s journey” pattern of ancient myth has persisted throughout all of human history.”
― Libbie Hawker, Take Off Your Pants! Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing

“Great Royal Wife Meritamun sat upon the Horus Throne, the gilded chair, carved and inlaid with a hundred lapis scarabs. The rightful place of the Pharaoh.”
― Libbie Hawker, The Sekhmet Bed

“A story is a character arc—a personality making a progression from an emotional or psychological Point A to an emotional or psychological Point B. Story is all about internal growth, not external events. It’s a character’s struggle to shed old behaviors or beliefs that have held him back from becoming his “true self”—the person he was always “meant to be.”
― Libbie Hawker, Take Off Your Pants! Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing

“I can hear some of you groaning as you read this section. “Great,” you’re saying. “I have to put a theme in my book? Themes are only for that ‘high literature’ stuff that gets taught in universities, not for my nice, entertaining genre fiction.”
― Libbie Hawker, Take Off Your Pants! Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing

“Strength, solidarity, and loyalty—those were the traits of a proper woman. Dovey”
― Libbie Hawker, Mercer Girls

“Gardens were weeded and watered and”
― Libbie Hawker, Egyptian Queens: An Ebook Sampler of Two Novels

“If you’re comfortable with your method and it delivers results you like, then it works for you, and you shouldn’t fix what isn’t broken.”
― Libbie Hawker, Take Off Your Pants! Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing

“Nefertari, Ahmose’s grandmother, stood beside the king’s throne, one hand on her daughter’s shoulder. She was the God’s Wife of Amun, the highest priest in the empire, and possessed of nearly as much power as the Pharaoh himself.”
― Libbie Hawker, The Sekhmet Bed

“There is nothing humble about this woman.”
― Libbie Hawker, Daughter of Sand and Stone

“Plot is certainly a part of constructing a story. It’s a factor in outlining. But believe it or not, it’s the least important factor. If you focus your efforts on the Three Legs—character arc, pacing, and theme—you can change the specifics of the plot a hundred different times, and you’ll still have essentially the same story.”
― Libbie Hawker, Take Off Your Pants! Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing