Break Quote by Edith Wharton

“What's remarkable about fiction is that it places you in the unusual position of having no trajectory. You stand aside, motives abandoned for the…

— Tom Rachman

Against the sustained tick of a watch, fiction takes the measure of a life, a season, a look exchanged, the turning point, desire as…

— Mavis Gallant

Prose is like a window; fiction is like a door. But it is not uncommon that he who should come in through the door…

— Mu Xin

“all writers, given adequate technique—technique that communicates—can stir our interest in their special subject matter, since at heart all fiction treats, directly or indirectly,…

— John Gardner

The fiction writer has a lot of balls to juggle. Setting, pacing, dialogue, and so on. And let's not forget: plot. That was always…

— Cate Marvin

“Fiction is most effective when its themes are unspoken. An ideal fiction has a kind of thematic ghostliness, whereby the novel marks its meanings…

— James Wood

“...fiction writing is like duck hunting. You go to the right place at the right time with the right dog. You get into the…

— Ann Patchett

Dialogue in fiction is what characters do to one another.

— Elizabeth Bowen

New dramatic writing has banished conversational dialogue from the stage as a relic of dramaturgy based on conflict and exchange: any story, intrigue or…

— Patrice Pavis

“Narration, after all, isn’t just a literary function. It represents the human capacity to tell stories in such a manner that they yield meaning.…

— Steve Almond

Fiction connects: past and present; the great and the small; the surface with the depths. Fiction brings out the innermost, invisible springs of life…

— Varley O'Connor

Plots may be simple or complex, but suspense, and climactic progress from one incident to another, are essential. Every incident in a fictional work…

— H. P. Lovecraft