Anton Chekov

Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter, it absolutely must go off. If it is not going to be fired, it should not be hanging there.

The Manchester Writing Competition

The Manchester Writing Competition offers the UK’s biggest literary awards for unpublished work, offered by the country’s most successful writing school. The Competition was established by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy in 2008 and has awarded more than £155,000 to writers. Each year two £10,000* prizes are awarded: the Manchester Poetry Prize for best portfolio of poems and the Manchester Fiction Prize for best short story. Designed to encourage and celebrate new writing across the globe, the competition is open internationally to new and established writers.

https://www2.mmu.ac.uk/writingcompetition/

 

Marlon James

Write about only three things: what you love, what you hate, and what you’re deeply conflicted about.

Laura Hillenbrand

Good writing has a musical quality to it, a mathematical quality, a balance and a rhythm. You can feel that much better when it’s read aloud.

Rebecca Solnit

The process of making art is the process of becoming a person with agency, with independent thought, a producer of meaning rather than a consumer of meanings that may be at odds with your soul, your destiny, your humanity.

The Bridport Prize

Short Story Prize (5,000 words max)

1st Prize £5,000 | 2nd Prize £1,000 | 3rd Prize £50010 x £100 for Highly Commended

Novel Award (8,000 words plus synopsis)

1st Prize  £1,000 + mentoring  | 2nd Prize 500 + manuscript assessment |  3rd Prize  3 x £100 for shortlisted writers

Flash Fiction Award (250 words max)

1st Prize £1,000 | 2nd Prize £500 | 3rd Prize £250
10 x £100 for Highly Commended

Poetry Prize (42 lines max)

1st Prize £5,000 | 2nd Prize £1,000 | 3rd Prize £500
10 x £100 for Highly Commended

https://www.bridportprize.org.uk

 

Amy Hempel

Sometimes a flat-footed sentence is what serves, so you don’t get all writerly: “He opened the door.” There, it’s open.

Peter Russell

Needing to fulfil a very rigorous disciplined structure and having the personality of a rebellious miscreant who hates convention and can’t stand following the rules – those two elements are often necessary for a creator, and it’s why creators are all crazy. … Rebels and rule followers are usually at the opposite ends of the scale, so to be able to combine those two, that makes you crazy. … It’s almost required to have a kind of schizophrenia to be a successful creator.

https://www.facebook.com/peterrussellscriptdoctor/

Richard Price

You don’t write about the horrors of war. You write about the kid’s burnt socks lying in the road.

Lorraine Hansberry

The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely.

Alexandre Dumas

Begin with something interesting rather than something boring; begin with the action rather than the background information; speak about the characters after they have appeared rather than having them appear after having spoken about them.

Jeffrey Carver

Write from the soul, not from some notion about what you think the marketplace wants. The market is fickle; the soul is eternal.

Gertrude Stein

You look ridiculous if you dance. You look ridiculous if you don’t dance. So you might as well dance.

Ann Patchett

Art stands on the shoulders of craft, which meams that to get to the art, you must master the craft. If you want to write, practice writing.

Barbara Kingsolver

Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer.

David Bowie

Go a little out of your depth, and when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.