I've been astonished how often, when I convince a writer to tell a story more straightforwardly and to tell it more simply and directly, it turns out that this author is great and the story is wonderful.

When an editor first explained to me the difference between direct and indirect writing, I just thought it was a stylistic choice.

Telling someone to be confident in the abstract is not going to make it easier for the unconfident writer to actually get herself or himself to the point of being able to put in the upsetting stuff.

Inevitably we start by thinking that if our work is any good, we'll get money. It's as we would if you started up a business or if you work in another profession.

It's a scary thing for fiction writers, when you're always writing from the point of view both as and for someone who is different.

Even murderers, I suppose, experience the loss of car keys the way the rest of us do. I mean, how can they not? Once you make this person scramble around the house looking for her car keys and finally find them, get in the car, and run into traffic, we can identify with her enough that when she stops the car and pulls the gun out of her purse and heads in to kill somebody, we'll be with her as much as is possible.

I actually think it's sometimes easier for the control freaks to let loose.