Sol Stein Quotes

13 quotes in 207 categories

• A reader's emotions can be sparked with few words. That's the power of dialogue.
• Dialogue is a lean language in which every word counts.
• Most of the time, tough, combative, adversarial dialogue is much more exciting than physical action.
• Dialogue, contrary to popular view, is not a recording of actual speech; it is a semblance of speech, an invented language of exchanges that build…
• Readers take in dialogue one thought at a time. A frequent mistake of beginners is to combine thoughts, which may be suitable for other forms…
• To create tension, dialogue needs to be stretched out. That is, characters should not be immediately responsive.
• In our not-yet-acknowledged secret garden lie the seeds of some of our best not-yet-written stories
• I see manuscripts and books that are spoiled for the literary reader because they are one long stream of top-of-the-head writing, a writer telling a…
• A writer writes what other people only think.
• Our instinct as human beings is to provide answers, to ease tension. As writers our job is the opposite, to create tension and not dispel…
• The expert magician seeks to deceive the mind, rather than the eye.
• The biggest difference between a writer and a would-be writer is their attitude toward rewriting. . . . Unwillingness to revise usually signals an amateur.
• Readers, transformed by film and TV, are used to seeing stories. The reading experience . . . is increasingly visual.

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