A short story…can be held in the mind all in one piece. It’s less like a building than a fiendish device. Every bit of it must be cunningly made and crafted to fit together perfectly and without waste so that it can perform its task with absolute precision…The ideal short story is like a knife – strongly made, well balanced and with an absolute minimum of moving parts.
Michael Swanwick
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Swanwick
(Hollywood’s) conception of what makes a good picture is still as juvenile as its treatment of writing talent is insulting and degrading.
Raymond Chandler
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Chandler
If novel writing is like swimming in the sea, then adapting is like swimming in the bath.
William Boyd
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Boyd_(writer)
Creativity could be described as letting go of certainties.
Gail Sheehy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gail_Sheehy
It’s possible in a poem or short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to endow these things – a chair, a window curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman’s earring – with immense, even startling power.
Raymond Carver
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Carver
Find the key emotion, this may be all you need to know to find your short story.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Scott_Fitzgerald
Telling yourself you have all the time in the world, all the money in the world, all the colours in the palette, anything you want – that just kills creativity.
Jack White
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_White
A good short story crosses the borders of our nations and our prejudices and our beliefs. A good short story asks a question that can’t be answered in simple terms. And even if we come up with some understanding, years later, while glancing out of a window, the story still has the potential to return, to alter right there in our mind and change everything.
Walter Mosley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Mosley
Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, painting, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic.
Jim Jarmusch
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jarmusch
Short stories do not say this happened and this happened and this happened. They are a microcosm and a magnification rather than a linear progression.
Isobelle Carmody
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isobelle_Carmody
