It has been said that Ernest Hemingway would rewrite scenes until they pleased him, often thirty or forty times. Hemingway, critics claimed, was a genius. Was it his genius that drove him to work hard, or was it hard work that resulted in works of genius?

It is possible to combine a story line and plot line in the same work. Usually the storylines comes first, serving as a background to the plot line, but not always.

It has been said that Ernest Hemingway would rewrite scenes until they pleased him, often thirty or forty times. Hemingway, critics claimed, was a genius. Was it his genius that drove him to work hard, or was it hard work that resulted in works of genius?

To set a forest on fire, you light a match. To set a character on fire, you put him in conflict.

Novel writing is like heroin addiction; it takes everything you've got.

The opposing missions of the various characters create the plot.

For some it is harder to write a novel than to row a bathtub across the North Atlantic.