Literary Birthday – 5 May – Scott Westerfeld

Happy Birthday, Scott Westerfeld, born 5 May 1963.

Scott Westerfeld Quotes

1. Sometimes tossing out vast quantities of words is better than letting a whole book bleed slowly to death. Don’t give up, just start over.
2. Try it both ways and see which works! Don’t just write one ending, write three!
3. Perhaps the logical conclusion of everyone looking the same is everyone thinking the same.
4. Sometimes the facts in my head get bored and decide to take a walk in my mouth. Frequently this is a bad thing.
5. The difference between being a part-time writer and a full-time writer is like the difference between dating someone and living with them. Some of the romance is gone, but you learn things you’d never know just by dating.
6. Sometimes you have to delete characters from a scene just to keep from overcrowding the image.
7. When I finish a first draft, I often look back at first chapters I wrote and laugh at them. They’re like pictures of yourself in middle school. You’re embarrassed to see them.
8. Luckily for writers – and unluckily for history – every scientific idea creates human conflict.
9. There is a mini-cult of first lines among us writers. The first line is sort of like the lobby of the book: the first thing you see, colouring all subsequent impressions. It’s one place where you’re truly allowed to show off.
10. The next time you read a scene that makes your socks roll up, make yourself stop and learn. Even if it interrupts your readerly pleasure, take a moment to wonder. How did the author just make you cry? Which elegant phrase or shameless trick jerked those tears from you? At what point in that action scene did your heart start pounding? What was the exact moment that you went from hating this character to liking them?

Scott Westerfeld is an American author. He is best known for his young adult fiction, particularly the Uglies and the Leviathan series.

Source for image

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scott_Westerfeld.jpg

Ceridwen, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

by Amanda Patterson

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