Art & Creativity Quote by Thomas Perry

"It's important, I think, for a writer of fiction to maintain an awareness of the pace and shape of the book as he's writing it. That is, he should be making an object, not chattering"

Thomas Perry, Musician

About this Quote

Perry’s line is a small act of tough love for anyone seduced by the romance of “finding the story” on the page. He’s arguing for craft over vibe: fiction isn’t a diary with better lighting, it’s a built thing, with weight distribution and edges you can cut your hands on. “Pace and shape” are tactile words, almost musical in their implications. Tempo and form aren’t afterthoughts; they’re the composition. The writer who ignores them is like a performer who refuses to count measures because it might ruin the feeling.

The jab lands in the last clause: “not chattering.” Perry isn’t attacking talkative prose so much as undisciplined intention. “Chattering” is language as nervous tic, scene piled on scene because the writer enjoys the sound of their own momentum. It’s also a warning about audience. Chatter is private speech; an “object” is made to be handled by someone else. That’s the moral pressure in the quote: respect the reader’s time by designing experience, not simply recording it.

Context matters in the way he frames this as “important, I think” and “he should,” a deliberately modest authority that still draws a bright line. It’s a musician’s pragmatism smuggled into literary advice: you can improvise, sure, but you’re still responsible for the arc. If the book doesn’t have a shape, it doesn’t have a point of view - it just has noise.

Quote Details

Topic	Writing
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About the Author

Thomas Perry (born April 28, 1963) is a Musician from Germany.

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