Dan Alatorre Quotes

Writers get ideas all day every day. The FedEx guy delivers a package from Sears and the writer is thinking how it could actually be a ticking time bomb.

Dig deep and go where the pain and fear and joy are, and put it out there. The minute you shy away from pure honesty in your writing, you become a liar.

Don’t polish it forever, put it out there. At some point the changes aren’t improvements, they’re just changes.

My characters still talk the way normal people talk. They argue, they are sarcastic with each other, they joke around. I usually end up with one outrageous minor character in each book that people just rave about. We all have that one friend who says and does things that are a riot. A character like that is the salt in the soup: you want just enough to bring everything to life.

On working with other writers: You develop honesty and you can then ask the really embarrassing questions. I have learned so many things I didn’t want to know, and they were all a result of interesting interviews for background information.

You need an interesting voice. A grabber opening is great, compelling characters are awesome, but the voice – your unique voice – is what carries your story. Find your voice. Own your voice. Learn to tell interesting stories using your unique voice. That is the key.

The more time you can put between you and your manuscript, the more fresh your eyes become and the more mistakes you’ll catch.

Don’t listen to any advice from anybody who has fewer published bestsellers than you, or anybody with more bestsellers than you. Or anybody with the exact same number of bestsellers as you. Don’t listen to any advice at all, even this advice I’m telling you right now.