There's a difference between describing and evoking something. You can describe something and be quite clinical about it. To evoke it, you call it up in the reader. That's what writers do when they're good. Margaret Atwood
What sort of person you grow into should not be achieved by default, and often that's exactly what happens to kids. I see literature as a method of guidance, information, and contemplation, and consider it the greatest compliment possible when a reader tells me that a book of mine really made him/her think. Wendelin Van Draanen
When you're writing a novel, you don't want the reader to come out of it voting yes or no to some question. Life is more complicated than that. Reality simply consists of Margaret Atwood
You learn to write by reading, and my experiences and tastes as a reader are pretty wide. Justin Cronin
You quickly find, when you are a hand-reader as I am, that nothing interests people so much as themselves. Margaret Atwood
Your protagonist is your reader's portal into the story. The more observant he or she can be, the more vivid will be the world you're creating. They don't have to be super-educated, they just have to be mentally active. Keep them looking, thinking, wondering, remembering. Janet Fitch