{"id":20650,"date":"2019-05-17T07:06:47","date_gmt":"2019-05-17T11:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wyliecomm.com\/?page_id=20650"},"modified":"2022-02-15T12:17:26","modified_gmt":"2022-02-15T16:17:26","slug":"prewriting-stage-of-writing","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.wyliecomm.com\/writing-tips\/writing-process\/effective-writing-process\/prewriting\/prewriting-stage-of-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"Quotes on the prewriting stage of writing"},"content":{"rendered":"

What writers and others say<\/h2>\n

\"Prewriting

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\u201cWriting comes more easily if you have something to say.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Sholem Asch, American novelist, dramatist and essayist<\/h6>\n
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\u201cRule No. 1 in all this is that you have to really have a command of the material before you sit down and write.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Mark Barabak, senior political writer,\u00a0Los Angeles Times<\/em><\/h6>\n
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\u201cNotes are like Velcro. As you try to skim them, they ensnare you, and pretty soon you can\u2019t see the story for the details. The story is not in my notes. The story is in my head.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Jane Harrigan, professor of journalism at the University of New Hampshire<\/h6>\n
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\u201cMy working habits are simple: long periods of thinking, short periods of writing.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Ernest Hemingway, Nobel Prize-winning novelist<\/h6>\n
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\u201cWriting is no trouble: you just jot down the ideas as they occur to you. The jotting is simplicity itself \u2026 it is the occurring which is difficult.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Stephen Leacock, Canadian humorist<\/h6>\n
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\u201c\u2018Thinking is the great unappreciated and understated part\u2019 of being a journalist.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 David Maraniss, best-selling author and\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0writer and editor<\/h6>\n
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\u201cIn my own somewhat narrow experience, the value of writing seems to be in inverse proportion to the ease of writing. Whatever flows freely and bubblingly turns out to be sorry stuff a week later.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 H.L. Mencken, American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, acerbic critic<\/h6>\n
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\u201cDo not confuse stenography with writing. Step back. Put the notes away. Take out a pad of paper. Think about the story. Tell it to yourself or a trusted editor or colleague. What surprised you, what did you learn, what one thing above everything else?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Donald M. Murray, Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, in\u00a0Writing to Deadline<\/em><\/h6>\n
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\u201cDonald Graves \u2026 discovered that the best writers rehearsed what they were going to write before they began. I found this was also true of the best writers on newspapers. They had been writing the story in their head \u2014 and often in their reporter\u2019s notebook \u2014 before they went out on their story, while they were reporting, and all the way back to their desks.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Donald M. Murray, Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, in\u00a0Writing to Deadline<\/em><\/h6>\n
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\u201cThe hard part is getting to the top of page one.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Tom Stoppard, Academy Award- and Tony Award-winning playwright<\/h6>\n
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\u201cWhy write a thesis when what you need is a tweet?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Ann Wylie, president of Wylie Communications Inc.<\/h6>\n
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\u201cThe most difficult and complicated part of the writing process is the beginning.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2015 A. B. Yehoshua, Israeli novelist<\/h6>\n
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