Quotes from Sol Stein

A handsome young man appears at one side of the stage. A beautiful young woman appears on the other side. The audience immediately wants them to get together. It is the author's job to keep them apart as long as possible.

The main flaw in most love scenes is similar to that of the main flaws in all other scenes: the reader's emotions have been insufficiently considered by the writer. The primary erogenous zone is in the head, and that's where the reader experiences writing.

What went on in that tower was excruciatingly painful. Wilmer Stone read our stories to us in a monotone as if he were reading from the pages of a phone directory. What we learned with each stab of pain was that the words themselves and not the inflections supplied by the reader had to carry the emotion of the story.

the mere description of multiple sexual acts does little or nothing for the reader. A single act, kept at bay, warmed to, stretched out, can have a marked erotic effect.

The more the reader's imagination can be substituted for detail from the writer, the greater the reader's experience will be.

Wilder taught me that what a writer deals with is the unspoken, what people see or sense in silence. It is our job, in nonfiction as well as fiction, to juxtapose words that reveal what previously may have been blinked, and provide insights obscured by convention and shame.

Wilmer Stone read our stories to us in a monotone as if he were reading from the pages of a phone directory. What we learned with each stab of pain was that the words themselves and not the inflections supplied by the reader had to carry the emotion of the story.

Look how you're dressed. Your suit is blue, your shirt is blue, your tie is blue. That's what's wrong with your writing.

All of these early exposures to offstage happenings contribute to the belief that stories are told. They can be a liability to writers later in life because the writer has to change his mind-set from telling what happened somewhere else to creating an experience for the reader by showing what happened. Twentieth

the single characteristic that most makes a difference in the success of an article or nonfiction book is the author's courage in revealing normally unspoken things about himself or his society. It takes guts to be a writer

Any word or group of words that makes the reader ask "Why?" or "How?" also serves as an inducement for the reader to go on.