Russell Galen
"I'm interested in individuality, not originality for its own sake."
— Russell Galen
for Creatives | artist integrity, writing, agents, Russell Galen
"More than anything, it's about telling your story through the viewpoint of characters who you'd spend four hours with over dinner, then spend four more hours with the next night. If you can bring characters to life and invent a voice for them, so that they seem to be speaking in our own heads as we read, you will have a highly readable manuscript."
— Russell Galen
for Creatives | characters, writing, storytelling, Russell Galen
"Readability ... when you encounter it, it's as obvious and recognizable as a mountain. ... It's a way of writing. It's sentence structure, the balance between show and tell, the balance between prose and dialogue, the balance between narration and interior monologue, the balance between ideas and action, and many other things."
— Russell Galen
"The elusive quality of readability is the heart of everything we seek in publishing."
— Russell Galen
"Just write the stories you want to write. If you are writing about authentic characters, we (agents, then editors, then readers) will care."
— Russell Galen
for Creatives | characters, create for YOURSELF, artist integrity, writing, reaching your audience, writer-reader relationship, editors, agents, Russell Galen
"The biggest entertainment in New York City is not Broadway, the Philharmonic or the Yankees: It's to go out to dinner with an interesting writer. These are the most interesting people on the planet. When they are able to decant that personality into a work of fiction, the rest of the world gets to experience for $24.95 what I get to experience for the going rate for a good meal for two in Manhattan."
— Russell Galen
for Creatives | artist integrity, writing, artist's voice, agents, Russell Galen
"Does your work have fingerprints? Is it something only you could have written? Does it have a style—is it about individual passion and situations—that makes me feel I am getting to know you, a unique individual?
— Russell Galen
for Creatives | artist integrity, writing, artist's voice, Russell Galen
"Don't talk to me in market speak. Tell me about your characters and the crisis they are trapped in, and make it seem serious, big."
— Russell Galen
for Creatives | characters, artist integrity, reaching your audience, agents, value the art, Russell Galen
"Worry more about a gripping story and an accessible style than about length."
— Russell Galen
"Today, thanks to certain pioneering authors, some great books, and some great movies and TV series, the wall between genre and mainstream fiction has become not a wall, but a river. It can be forded or bridged."
— Russell Galen
for Creatives | books, artist integrity, TV series, film, novel writing, writing, genre, TV writing, creative freedom, Russell Galen
"Writers seeking to break in are often so concerned with sounding salable that they put it before craft. It's off-putting. The more the writer seems focused on selling, the less genuine the craft tends to be. Talk to me about your ideas, your characters, your worlds: That's how to excite me."
— Russell Galen
for Creatives | artist integrity, the successful artist, writing, reaching your audience, agents, ideas, Russell Galen
"If the setting is a spaceship or a magical land then we'll call it genre fiction, but anyone should be able to get caught up in the lives of such characters."
— Russell Galen
for Creatives | characters, sci-fi, fantasy, writing, genre, Russell Galen