Always Quote by H. P. Lovecraft

The last paragraph, in which you tell what the story is about, is almost always best left out.

— Irwin Shaw

And I don't want to begin something, I don't want to write that first sentence until all the important connections in the novel are…

— John Irving

The first paragraph. The last paragraph. That's where the story is going and how it's going to end. Or else you'll go off in…

— Hunter S. Thompson

I begin by writing paragraphs that don’t have an immediate relation to a plot. The sound of the story comes first.

— Grace Paley

“Stories are no good, not even the short ones, because by the time you get to the second page he's forgotten the beginning. Where…

— Margaret Atwood

I don't pare down much. I write the beginning of a story in a notebook and it comes out very close to what it…

— Lydia Davis

“Every good story needs a good ending. Don't write the beginning of a novel without knowing the end of it.”

— A.D.Y. Howle

“Write the ending first and then you'll know before the opening sentence that it's going to be a good book.”

— Richelle E. Goodrich

Considerations of plot do a great deal of heavy lifting when it comes to long-form narrative - readers will overlook the most ham-fisted prose…

— Lynn Coady

Usually I'll write all the way through to an end, and then I go back and try to fix the ending so that it…

— Heidi Julavits

Probably a good idea, let me know how it ends" "I already know how it ends" "You read the ending first?" "I always read…

— Jayne Ann Krentz

Don't mistake a good setup for a satisfying conclusion - many beginning writers end their stories when the real story is just ready to…

— Stanley Schmidt