Lori

“Beautiful writing may sparkle like a diamond necklace, but sparkling isn’t a feeling.”
― Donald Maass, The Emotional Craft of Fiction: How to Write the Story Beneath the Surface

“An ironic, snarky, or perky tone can be used to avoid true intimacy with readers. Literary writing isn’t necessarily intimate, either. A life “closely observed” doesn’t mean we’ll care about it.”
― Donald Maass, The Emotional Craft of Fiction: How to Write the Story Beneath the Surface

“I asked a poet friend one time what it was that poets did and he thought a while, and then he said ‘They extend the language.’ I thought that was neat, but it didn’t make me grateful in my bones for poets. Language extenders I can take or leave alone.

Anne Sexton does a deeper favor for me: she domesticates my terror, examines it and describes it, teaches it some tricks which will amuse me, then lets it gallop wild in my forest once more.”
― Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

“The first task in building a compelling story world is to create hope.”
― Donald Maass, The Emotional Craft of Fiction: How to Write the Story Beneath the Surface