"All fiction has to be as honest as you can make it"
"If you're going to write, you have to be willing to be the equivalent of walking down the street naked." – Neil Gaiman
Honesty is the most important part of writing and it will make everything else easier. If you aren't willing to be honest in your writing, readers won't believe what you are saying.
Telling the truth might be difficult, but it is necessary in order to make your writing believable. Readers will appreciate your work more if you are honest and open with them.
"Good writers experience stories at a deeper level. Other than 'I like this' or 'I don't like this.'" – Neil Gaiman
When you are writing, it is important to think about the story at a deeper level. What does this mean for the characters? What is the theme of the story?
Thinking about these things will make your writing more meaningful and interesting. It can be difficult to do, but it is worth it in the end.
"You learn more from finishing a failure than beginning something that's fantastic but stops"
There are many times when you will write something that isn't successful. This is fine as long as you learn from it and use the experience to improve your writing in the future.
You can also take this lesson to heart by not putting too much pressure on yourself or comparing yourself to other writers who are more well-known than you are now. It's better to work hard, try new things, and keep improving rather than to give up because you feel like a failure.
"Characters always, for good or for evil, get what they need. They do not get what they want."
This is a very important lesson to remember when writing. Characters should not always get what they want because it would make for an uninteresting story.
Instead, the whole point of a story is for the character to get what they need and grow. Good stories are about the character realizing what they wanted the whole story is not what they needed. What they actually needed was something better and allows them to become a better person.
“Nobody but you ever needs to read your first draft.”
Don't obsess over perfection. Just write the story and worry about making it perfect later.
The first draft is just for you. No one else needs to see it. This way, you can focus on getting your thoughts down on paper without having to worry about what other people will think. You can always go back and revise it later.
