The main question to a novel is -- did it amuse? were you surprised at dinner coming so soon? did you mistake eleven for ten? were you too late to dress? and did you sit up beyond the usual hour? If a novel produces these effects, it is good; if it does not -- story, language, love, scandal itself cannot save it. It is only meant to please; and it must do that or it does nothing.

Sydney Smith

Sydney Smith

craft enjoyment novels pleasure writing

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[I]f a book is well written, I always find it too short.

— Jane Austen

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Writing a novel is actually searching for victims. As I write I keep looking for casualties. The stories uncover the casualties."

(Interview in Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, Eighth Series, ed. George Plimpton, 1988)

— John Irving

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In composing, as a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigor it will give your style.

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I came on the old and best ways of writing through ignorance and experiment and was startled when truths leaped out of brushes like quail before gunshot.

— Ray Bradbury

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It's as hard to get from almost finished to finished as to get from beginning to almost done.

— Elinor Fuchs