Quotes on Fiction Writing

Hemingway's Iceberg Theory:

"If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water."

Raymond Carver:

"Abjure carelessness in writing, just as you would in real life."

"One of the things I feel strongly about is that while short stories often tell us things we don't know anything about--and this is good, of course--they should also, and maybe more importantly, tell us what everybody knows but what nobody is talking about."

"When a reader finishes a wonderful story and lays it aside, he should have to pause for a minute and collect himself. At this moment, if the writer has succeeded, there ought to be a unity of feeling and understanding. Or, if not a unity, at least a sense that the disparities of a crucial situation have been made available in a new light.... It should make such an impression that the work, as Hemingway suggested, becomes a part of the reader's experience.... In great fiction...there is always the 'shock of recognition' as the human significance of the work is revealed and made manifest. When, in Joyce's words, the soul of the story, it's 'whateness, leaps to us from the vestment of its appearance.'"

I'm presently reading Carver's Call If You Need Me: The Uncollected Fiction and Other Prose. The book includes several essays about writing. I strongly recommend them. I also definitely recommend Carver's stories. When I have questions about my own writing, he's usually who I read to find the answers. What writers provide answers--or at least food for thought--for you?