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Darin Strauss Quotes
Darin Strauss Quotes
Darin Strauss
American
Writer
Born:
Mar 1
,
1970
About
Fiction
Good
People
Writing
You
Related authors:
Dale Carnegie
Denis Waitley
Dr. Seuss
H. L. Mencken
Napoleon Hill
Ray Bradbury
W. E. B. Du Bois
William Arthur Ward
In Minneapolis, I learned that there are more theaters per square mile than in any U.S. city but New York, and we also had great Midwestern beef in our salads in a plaza overlooking the national headquarters of Target, Inc.
Darin Strauss
Great
National
Plaza
Our
City
Minneapolis
Per
More
Had
New
Headquarters
Also
Learned
Overlooking
Beef
Salads
Target
Square
Than
York
Any
New York
Theaters
Midwestern
Mile
Too much contemporary fiction seems purposefully to address small things in small ways. And yet why not try for the all-inclusive, the gripping, for the audacious?
Darin Strauss
Small Things
Try
Too Much
Too
Address
Ways
Seems
Small
Contemporary
Audacious
Fiction
Gripping
Much
Why
Why Not
Things
For the fiction students I teach, one of the most common mistakes is to start in the wrong place. Often the actual story doesn't begin until about a third of the way into their narratives. They start off instead with excessive scene-setting, metaphysical speculation, introducing nonessential dramatis personae, throat-clearing, etc.
Darin Strauss
Mistakes
Way
Introducing
About
Excessive
Students
Wrong
Instead
Wrong Place
Most
Until
Narratives
Metaphysical
Off
Begin
Often
Common
Fiction
Story
Place
Etc
Teach
Actual
Start
Speculation
Third
Usually, as a fiction writer, you get e-mails saying, 'I liked your book,' or 'I didn't like it.' You don't get something saying, 'I'm really glad this is in the world.'
Darin Strauss
Saying
You
Book
World
Something
Glad
Writer
Like
Liked
Get
Fiction
Fiction Writer
Really
Your
When you write fiction, you have an ideal reader in your mind who's sort of you but smarter.
Darin Strauss
You
Mind
Write
Ideal
Smarter
Reader
Sort
Fiction
Your
My first book is about twins who are attached: two people who are joined and can't escape each other.
Darin Strauss
Book
People
First
Other
About
Attached
Joined
Escape
Who
Each
Twins
Two
Two People
The starkest rejection letter might be followed by a million-dollar advance. Don't let rejection start to look the same as failure.
Darin Strauss
Failure
Rejection
Followed
Advance
Look
Same
Might
Letter
Start
Constant rejection. No security. Career paths being dictated by freelance reviewers. And of course, the terror of the writing desk, of the blank page. Why is it so hard for our non-writer friends to understand this - that it's a job?
Darin Strauss
Writing
Job
Freelance
Rejection
Our
Security
Constant
Blank
Blank Page
Course
Understand
Terror
Reviewers
Dictated
Friends
Paths
Being
Page
Hard
Why
Career
Desk
In order for a narrative to work, the primary character should have a concrete desire - a need that drives her story - and the story's writer should make this goal known to the reader pretty early in the narrative.
Darin Strauss
Work
Character
Pretty
Writer
Drives
Primary
Make
Known
Reader
Narrative
Concrete
Goal
Order
Story
Should
Her
Early
Desire
Need
In each scene, the writer sets up a situation, which brings a conflict as well as either a small victory or a loss at the close of that particular scene.
Darin Strauss
Conflict
Victory
Situation
Sets
Small
Scene
Writer
Particular
Well
Loss
Up
Close
Either
Which
Each
Brings
A subplot is a distinguishing characteristic of the novel; the short story, for example, does not need subplots.
Darin Strauss
Example
Characteristic
Distinguishing
For Example
Does
Short
Short Story
Story
Novel
Need
Often it's the people who know a place least well who write about it best because they see it fresh.
Darin Strauss
Best
People
See
About
Write
Know
Well
Because
Fresh
Least
Often
Place
Who
A good writer knows that if her style and perceptions are really cooking, she can bring anything off. It's okay, of course, for novelists to depict bland, average families living bland, average lives in bland, average towns. But it isn't okay when those novelists don't outshine their bland, average subjects.
Darin Strauss
Good
Cooking
Style
Living
Those
Okay
Perceptions
Bland
Writer
Good Writer
Towns
She
Knows
Course
Off
Subjects
Families
Depict
Anything
Average
Really
Novelists
Lives
Her
Bring
Maybe the 'Million Little Pieces' of the world are so popular because no one ever writes memoirs about PTA chairwomen; what memoirists do, and often get in trouble for, is bring interesting lives to light.
Darin Strauss
World
Light
Trouble
Memoirs
About
Writes
No-One
Pieces
Because
Get
Often
Maybe
Interesting
Little
Popular
Ever
Lives
Million
Bring
My knowledge of trains - and love before first sight, love at negative-one sight - comes from Alfred Hitchcock.
Darin Strauss
Love
Knowledge
First
Before
Alfred Hitchcock
Sight
Hitchcock
Trains
Perhaps it's because a writer lives in Brooklyn that he'd want to get away from it. It can be very sustaining, this community of writers - sometimes it's the feeling of many hands giving you a boost. But all that identical ambition can be choking, too. The many hands slide up to your throat.
Darin Strauss
You
Sometimes
Giving
Feeling
Ambition
Community
Too
Slide
Boost
Brooklyn
Throat
Writer
Writers
He
Perhaps
Identical
Because
Up
Very
Get
Hands
Want
Sustaining
Your
Choking
Many
Away
Lives
I have twin six-year-old boys. Have no mojo. The closest thing to a mojo I have is five minutes of peace.
Darin Strauss
Peace
Minutes
Boy
Five
Closest
Closest Thing
Mojo
Twin
Thing
Like all writing rules, the injunction to start with the trouble can be broken, and it should be sometimes - if there's good reason.
Darin Strauss
Good
Broken
Writing
Sometimes
Trouble
Rules
Good Reason
Like
Should
Reason
Injunction
Start
Surprisingly, Manhattan casts a sort of undersized shadow onto Long Island. Where I grew up, everyone seemed totally disconnected from the city - ours could have been any suburb, anywhere - though when traffic was thin, it took us only half an hour to get into midtown.
Darin Strauss
Long
Half
Took
Everyone
Though
Ours
City
Shadow
Totally
Seemed
Only
Long Island
Casts
Could
Onto
Hour
Sort
Island
Disconnected
Been
Surprisingly
Traffic
Up
Get
Any
Where
Manhattan
Grew
Anywhere
Suburb
Us
Thin
Memoirs are - memory is - rarely 100 percent accurate. Any autobiography is a construct, ballpark, even unnatural. Private diaries, too, can be unreliable - a detail that matters only if the diary is read.
Darin Strauss
Memory
Matters
Too
Unnatural
Detail
Memoirs
Rarely
Percent
Only
Construct
Unreliable
Read
Private
Ballpark
Diaries
Diary
Accurate
Any
Autobiography
Even
I got a job writing for a financial technology newsletter in Manhattan. I didn't even understand what I was writing about. The newsletter had, like, 2,000 subscribers, and it was $700 a year for a subscription.
Darin Strauss
Technology
Writing
Financial
Job
Year
About
Had
Like
Understand
Got
Subscription
Manhattan
Even
I consider myself a Jewish writer - even if my characters frequently are not Jewish - in the same way, I guess, that I consider myself a Jewish man, even though I don't often attend shul.
Darin Strauss
Myself
Man
Consider
Guess
Way
Though
Characters
Writer
Attend
Frequently
Same
Often
Even
Jewish
My prayer is improvised - though like some standard jazz performance, the improv happens within pretty strict parameters - and asks for nothing.
Darin Strauss
Prayer
Strict
Nothing
Jazz
Though
Parameters
Some
Pretty
Performance
Like
Within
Improv
Improvised
Happens
Ask
Standard
Now, whether my not asking for good things to happen to me is subconsciously intended to win me brownie points with God is something I can't answer. But I do feel the need to give thanks and also not to feel hypocritical by asking for things when I have doubts that God would answer me.
Darin Strauss
God
Good
Me
Good Things
Win
Thanks
Would
Give
Something
Points
Hypocritical
Feel
Also
Answer
Subconsciously
Intended
Happen
Whether
Asking
Doubts
Now
Things
Need
What makes writing a memoir difficult is harder to quantify. Is it learning to know when you're ready to talk about something? Is it seeing the structure in a lumpen mass of fact? Is it finding out what you were really like as other people saw you? Yes to each.
Darin Strauss
You
Learning
People
Writing
Difficult
Other
Saw
Out
Memoir
Finding
Seeing
About
Something
Structure
Fact
Mass
Like
Know
Talk
Quantify
Makes
Ready
Were
Yes
Really
Each
Harder
I'm very strict in my belief that non-fiction should be truthful, and fiction is for invented narratives.
Darin Strauss
Strict
Invented
Non-Fiction
Narratives
Very
Truthful
Fiction
Should
Belief
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