Nick Petrie Quotes

Nick Petrie received his MFA in fiction from the University of Washington, won a Hopwood Award for short fiction while an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, and his story "At the Laundromat" won the 2006 Short Story Contest in The Seattle Review, a national literary journal. A husband and father, he has worked as a roofer, carpenter, remodeling contractor, and freelance building inspector. He lives in Milwaukee.

Also known as Author, Novelist

Character drives the story, and the story drives the book. I don't think about where the action should go, or how much there should be, until it's required by the characters. When I find myself adding conflict just because I'm afraid that the reader might get bored, I know I've taken a wrong turn somewhere.

Nick Petrie
- Character
- Action
- Story
From a purely craft standpoint, a simple character has a single motivation, while complex characters have two or three or more motivations, at least one of which is in direct conflict with another.

Nick Petrie