Quotes About Fiction

But your imaginings would be ersatz, as all imaginings are.

Myths are often entertaining, but they're never very helpful.

If I were making up a story, I would have it gray and miserable outside, but it was sunny and miserable instead

I like a story that could never happen to me. If I want real life I'll read a newspaper.

Even the most ridiculous of stories can contain a grain of truth.

Just because you can picture something does not make it so.

But just because you can picture something does not make it so.

I feel like I don't watch that many shows with death.

History would be a wonderful thing – if it were only true.

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Embrace the impossible! Find the magic within! BE MORE FICTIONAL.

there comes a time in life, when you realize that everything is a dream; only those things which are written down have any possibility of being real.

whom we do not believe. Who we know does not exist.

When our characters show us the full fire of that inner battle, we have the makings of great fiction. For whether the choice is ultimately for honor or dishonor, we will see the consequences and the reader will be instructed without being taught.

the main task of the romance writer then––to get us bonded to the characters so we will want to follow them on their journey to amour.  Example 1: Secret Star by Nora Roberts

You don't always have to render the feelings of your characters, but you must know what they are in every scene. That way, the actions and dialogue will have an organic complexity that breathes life into fiction.

Write down the POV character in the scene, the objective, and a list of possible obstacles. Write a tentative outcome. Spend a couple of minutes making a list of unexpected things. Go wild. One of them will please you. Then you're ready to write.

In your first ten pages you can have three sentences of backstory, used all at once or spread out. In your second ten pages you can have three paragraphs of backstory, used all at once or spread out. But if you put backstory or exposition into dialogue, then you're free to use your own discretion. Just be sure the dialogue is truly what the characters would say and doesn't come off as a none-too-clever info dump.

Half the places I have been to, never were. I make things up. Half the things I say are there cannot be found. When I was young I told a tale of buried gold, and men from leagues around dug in the woods. I dug myself. But why? I thought the tale of treasure might be true. You said you made it up. I know I did, but then I didn't know I had. I forget things, too.

Myth is not about facts

Rethinking Our Past: Recognizing Facts, Fiction, and Lies in American History Social Science in the Courtroom

Broken hearts, unrequited love and inconsolable misery are subjects which, most fortunately, I have only ever read in books.

Novels are all so full of nonsense and stuff; there has not been a tolerably decent one come out since Tom Jones, except The Monk; I read that t'other day; but as for all the others, they are the stupidest things in creation.

Oh! it is only a novel! ... only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda;' or, in short, only some work in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language.