Anne Enright: "Description is hard. Remember that all description is an opinion about the world. Find a place to stand."
Geoff Dyer: "If you use a computer, constantly refine and expand your autocorrect settings. The only reason I stay loyal to my piece-of-shit computer is that I have invested so much ingenuity into building one of the great autocorrect files in literary history. Perfectly formed and spelt words emerge from a few brief keystrokes: "Niet" becomes "Nietzsche", "phoy" becomes "photography" and so on. Genius!"
Helen Dunmore: "Listen to what you have written. A dud rhythm in a passage of dialogue may show that you don't yet understand the characters well enough to write in their voices."
Esther Freud: "A story needs rhythm. Read it aloud to yourself. If it doesn't spin a bit of magic, it's missing something."
David Hare: "Never take advice from anyone with no investment in the outcome."
Hilary Mantel: "Be aware that anything that appears before "Chapter One" may be skipped. Don't put your vital clue there."
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