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#atozchallenge : I is for Intensity #writing #fiction #quotes

Theme: Quotes from Authors and Bookish People about Writing

A to Z Challenge has taken over my life, and I’m still struggling with life issues, and travel. But the blog must go on in April, so today on Amlokiblogs, I bring to you Intensity.

In fiction, genuineness and honesty is all. The more able a writer is to deal with difficult situations and emotions in his or her writing, the more willing to let their imagination soar, unfettered by judgment of any sort, the more intense the fiction.

Intensity evokes a strong reaction in the readers and keeps them hooked. Here are few quotes on writing intensely:

 “You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.”— Saul Bellow

“Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an
audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the
case. What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon? What
could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its
triviality?”
— Annie Dillard


“If you have any young friends who aspire
to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to
present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”
 ― Dorothy Parker

 “Be daring, take on anything. Don’t labor
over little cameo works in which every word is to be perfect. Technique
holds a reader from sentence to sentence, but only content will stay in
his mind.”
― Joyce Carol Oates

“One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot
it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what
seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it,
give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a
better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will
arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from
beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself
what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything
you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your
safe and find ashes.”
— Annie Dillard

“Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.”

– Zadie Smith
~~~~~~~~~
 When you read a novel or short story, how important is the intensity of emotions it evokes in you?
Damyanti Biswas

Damyanti Biswas is the author of You Beneath Your Skin and numerous short stories that have been published in magazines and anthologies in the US, the UK, and Asia. She has been shortlisted for Best Small Fictions and Bath Novel Awards and is co-editor of the Forge Literary Magazine. Her literary crime thriller series, the Blue Mumbai, is represented by Lucienne Diver from The Knight Agency. Both The Blue Bar and The Blue Monsoon were published in 2023.

I appreciate comments, and I always visit back. If you're having trouble commenting, let me know via the contact form, or tweet me up @damyantig !

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