The one ironclad rule is that I have to try. I have to walk into my writing room and pick up my pen every weekday morning
Anne TylerRead
I do write long, long character notes - family background, history, details of appearance - much more than will ever appear in the novel. I think this is what lifts a book from that early calculated, artificial stage.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of deep character development in writing.
In this quote, Anne Tyler expresses her belief that extensive character notes, which include detailed backgrounds and histories, are essential for creating authentic and relatable characters in her novels. By investing time in understanding the characters fully, a writer can transcend the initial, superficial stages of writing, leading to a richer and more engaging narrative that resonates with readers.
In practice
In a writing workshop, to emphasize the importance of character creation.
The one ironclad rule is that I have to try. I have to walk into my writing room and pick up my pen every weekday morning
I don't know what takes more courage: surviving a lifelong endurance test because you once made a promise or breaking free, disrupting all your world.
I just want to be told a story, and I want to believe I'm living that story, and I don't give a thought to influences or method or any other writerly concerns
It seems to me that since I've had children, I've grown richer and deeper. They may have slowed down my writing for a while, but when I did write, I had more of a self to speak from.
And she thought what a clean, simple life she would have led if it weren't for love.
There is no true life. Your true life is the one you end up with, whatever it may be. You just do the best you can with what you've got.
For me painting is a dramatic action in the course of which reality finds itself split apart
Art is purposiveness without purpose.
A great work of art is one that truly moves and inspires you. You yourself must be moved. Don't look at art with others' eyes. Don't listen to music with others' ears. You must react to art with your own feelings, your own heart and mind.
Adornment, what a science! Beauty, what a weapon! Modesty, what elegance!
I am a writer. I suppose I think that the highest gift that man has is art, and I am audacious enough to think of myself as an artist - that there is both joy and beauty and illumination and communion between people to be achieved through the dissection of personality.
When a documentary filmmaker, working in the style that I do, suggests that there has been a shooting ratio of 40 hours to every one hour of finished film, that doesn't mean that the other 39 are bad.
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