As gleaned from the most recent Author's Guild Bulletin (if you haven't joined, get on it!), quoting from a June 2008 New York Times interview with bestselling suspense novelist Lee Child:
"I want the books to be entertaining, and I want them to be easy reads. It's up to me, not the reader, to do the work...If someone says that my books are well written, I worry a little. I mean, I hope they are, but I don't want that to be noticed. It should be the invisible undercarriage."
This may be the smartest bit of writing advice I've ever read... and key in avoiding the sin of elegant variation.
Although I still have enough of an ego to like it if someone compliments my writing. ;)
Comments