“A casual style ruins any serious fantasy.”

Expressing his belief that fantastic material requires sustained seriousness of treatment · Essay, Notes on Writing Weird Fiction

• Imagination
• Style
• Writing

“Never have a wonder taken for granted.”

Insisting that the extraordinary must retain its emotional power within a story · Essay, Notes on Writing Weird Fiction

• Horror
• Wonder
• Writing

“Inconceivable events and conditions have a special handicap to overcome, and this can be accomplished only through the maintenance of a careful realism.”

Explaining why extraordinary fiction requires a convincing foundation of ordinary reality · Essay, Notes on Writing Weird Fiction

• Horror
• Skill
• Writing

“In writing a weird story I always try very carefully to achieve the right mood and atmosphere, and place the emphasis where it belongs.”

Summarising the importance he placed upon atmosphere and emotional emphasis · Essay, Notes on Writing Weird Fiction

• Emotion
• Horror
• Writing

“Prepare a neatly typed copy—not hesitating to add final revisory touches where they seem in order.”

Showing that revision continued for him even at the final preparation stage · Essay, Notes on Writing Weird Fiction

• Discipline
• Work
• Writing

“Remove all possible superfluities—words, sentences, paragraphs, or whole episodes or elements.”

A forceful statement of his belief in eliminating material that does not serve the story · Essay, Notes on Writing Weird Fiction

• Discipline
• Style
• Writing

“Insert and delete whole sections if necessary or desirable, trying different beginnings and endings until the best arrangement is found.”

Treating substantial revision as a normal part of composition · Essay, Notes on Writing Weird Fiction

• Change
• Skill
• Writing

“Write out the story—rapidly, fluently, and not too critically—following the second or narrative-order synopsis.”

His practical advice for moving from planning into an initial draft · Essay, Notes on Writing Weird Fiction

• Creativity
• Discipline
• Writing

“Let additions and alterations be made whenever suggested by anything in the formulating process.”

Encouraging writers to remain open to discoveries made while shaping a story · Essay, Notes on Writing Weird Fiction

• Change
• Creativity
• Writing

“The actual process of writing is of course as varied as the choice of theme and initial conception.”

Emphasising the flexibility of the creative process · Essay, Notes on Writing Weird Fiction

• Choice
• Creativity
• Writing

“Once or twice I have literally written out a dream.”

Showing the direct influence of dreams upon some of his imaginative writing · Essay, Notes on Writing Weird Fiction

• Dreams
• Imagination
• Writing

“As to how I write a story—there is no one way. Each one of my tales has a different history.”

Rejecting the idea that creative work must follow a single fixed method · Essay, Notes on Writing Weird Fiction

• Creativity
• Individuality
• Writing

“While my chosen form of story-writing is obviously a special and perhaps a narrow one, it is none the less a persistent and permanent type of expression, as old as literature itself.”

Defending weird fiction as an enduring literary form rather than a passing novelty · Essay, Notes on Writing Weird Fiction

• Literature
• Tradition
• Writing

“These stories frequently emphasise the element of horror because fear is our deepest and strongest emotion, and the one which best lends itself to the creation of nature-defying illusions.”

Explaining why fear became the principal emotional instrument of his fiction · Essay, Notes on Writing Weird Fiction

• Fear
• Horror
• Writing

“I choose weird stories because they suit my inclination best.”

A straightforward statement of his natural affinity for supernatural fiction · Essay, Notes on Writing Weird Fiction

• Horror
• Identity
• Writing

“But the charm of the tale is in the telling.”

A concise reminder that execution can matter more than subject matter · Essay, Supernatural Horror in Literature

• Storytelling
• Style
• Writing

“Atmosphere is the all-important thing, for the final criterion of authenticity is not the dovetailing of a plot but the creation of a given sensation.”

Placing emotional atmosphere above intricate plotting in weird fiction · Essay, Supernatural Horror in Literature

• Emotion
• Horror
• Writing

“The true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule.”

Distinguishing genuine weird fiction from conventional frightening imagery · Essay, Supernatural Horror in Literature

• Horror
• Originality
• Writing

“I do not know what unfortunate obsession drove me at that time to bare my soul before the public's consideration, or disregard, which was more likely.”

Original: No sé qué infausta monomanía me acuciaba en aquella época a desnudar mi alma ante la pública consideración o desconsideración, que era más probable. — Looking back ruefully on the exposure of private experience in his earlier writing · Academy address, Semi-poesía y posibilidad, 1938 (Spanish)

• Memory
• Privacy
• Writing

“To say plainly what one thinks or feels about things is, for certain temperaments, a necessity.”

Original: Decir buenamente lo que se piensa o se siente de las cosas, es para ciertos temperamentos una necesidad. — Presenting expression as an inward necessity rather than a literary pose · Preface, La guerra literaria (Spanish)

• Emotion
• Sincerity
• Writing

“As a model of what may and may not properly be said or written on any subject, Shakespeare will always be good enough for me.”

Invoking Shakespeare as his standard against restrictive literary convention · The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas, 1929

• Convention
• Literature
• Writing

“Good poets do not 'pour out words' like inspired gramophones.”

Rejecting the romantic notion that good poetry simply arrives without labour · The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas, 1929

• Poetry
• Work
• Writing

“if any thing was good it would defend it-self, and what was bad could never be defended.”

Expressing confidence that lasting merit ultimately needs little defence · Preface to The Works of Alexander Pope, 1717

• Criticism
• Truth
• Writing

“If I have written well, let it be consider'd that 'tis what no man can do without good sense, a quality that not only renders one capable of being a good writer, but a good man.”

Connecting literary judgement with judgement in life · Preface to The Works of Alexander Pope, 1717

• Character
• Wisdom
• Writing