{"id":43995,"date":"2026-08-06T06:30:45","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T18:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=43995"},"modified":"2026-08-05T21:30:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T09:30:15","slug":"a-quote-on-writing-from-leo-tolstoy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2026\/08\/06\/a-quote-on-writing-from-leo-tolstoy\/","title":{"rendered":"A Quote on Writing from Leo Tolstoy"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><span class=\"css-1jxf684 r-bcqeeo r-1ttztb7 r-qvutc0 r-poiln3\" style=\"color: #333333;\">\u201cI have found that a story leaves a deeper impression when it is impossible to tell which side the author is on.\u201d<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>~ Leo Tolstoy, 1828 &#8211; 1910<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; I thought, on first reading this quote. For me, it speaks to a writing approach where all characters and events are real and immersive, leaving the reader to judge each character by their behaviours and actions, rather than letting the authorial voice intrude.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-42927 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Anna-Karenina_1-220x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"220\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Anna-Karenina_1-220x300.jpg 220w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Anna-Karenina_1-110x150.jpg 110w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Anna-Karenina_1.jpg 326w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 220px) 100vw, 220px\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-43996 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/War-and-Peace_Tolstoy-195x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"195\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/War-and-Peace_Tolstoy-195x300.jpg 195w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/War-and-Peace_Tolstoy-667x1024.jpg 667w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/War-and-Peace_Tolstoy-98x150.jpg 98w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/War-and-Peace_Tolstoy-768x1179.jpg 768w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/War-and-Peace_Tolstoy-1001x1536.jpg 1001w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/War-and-Peace_Tolstoy-1334x2048.jpg 1334w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/War-and-Peace_Tolstoy.jpg 1524w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 195px) 100vw, 195px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cI have found that a story leaves a deeper impression when it is impossible to tell which side the author is on.\u201d ~ Leo Tolstoy, 1828 &#8211; 1910 &#8220;Yes,&#8221; I thought, on first reading this quote. For me, it speaks to a writing approach where all characters and events are real and immersive, leaving the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,19,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-writing","category-funstuff","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43995"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43998,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43995\/revisions\/43998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}