“I have to say that movies have as much impact on me as music. And that I learned as much about narrative from movies as I did from reading novels, how to arrange stories, how to juxtapose things.” StoriesReadingNovelImpactNarrativeReading Novels Author:Dana Spiotta
“I think it's harder than ever to be an artist. I think that you end up, especially as a middle-aged person, you pay such big consequences for saying, 'I'm just going to devote my life to making art,' or 'I'm going to devote my life to writing novels.' You end up with no resources.” ThinkingWritingPersonsArtEndsBigsArtistPayNovelMiddleConsequenceResourcesHarderMiddle Aged Author:Dana Spiotta
“For me writing is an organic process that starts with engaging the language and then thinking about the structure of the novel as you move along. Especially in revision you start to notice correlations. Things come up, not self-consciously, because you're busy feeling your way through sentences and trying to push the language into new places.” ThinkingWayWritingTryingSelfFeelingsMovingLanguageProcessNovelStructureBusyCome UpSentencesEngagingRevisionCorrelationNew Places Author:Dana Spiotta
“I think there's a false division people sometimes make in describing literary novels, where there are people who write systems novels, or novels of ideas, and there are people who write about emotional things in which the movement is character driven. But no good novels are divisible in that way.” PeopleThinkingWayWritingIdeasSometimesCharacterNovelMovementEmotionalDrivenDivisionDescribingEmotional Things Author:Dana Spiotta
“There are lots of authentic, moving characters in so-called systems novels, just as there are certainly deep structural ideas in some character-driven novels.” IdeasCharacterMovingNovelDriven Author:Dana Spiotta
“The writer has to take risks and go somewhere full of mystery and possibility for the novel to deepen over the years it takes to write it.” WritingYearsNovelRiskMysteryPossibility Author:Dana Spiotta
“The novel is about, for me, sustained and organized looking. I do think that people have a hunger for a sustained engagement, that concentration that the book can offer.” PeopleThinkingBookNovelOffersHungerOrganizedConcentrationEngagement Author:Dana Spiotta
“Memory is not particularly linear - it is associative, repetitive, subjective and porous. But the writer needs to convey disorder and dysfunction without making the novel itself disorderly or dysfunctional.” NeedsMemoriesNovelDisorderSubjectiveLinearRepetitiveDysfunction Author:Dana Spiotta
“It takes a long time to write a novel when you have to keep interrupting your work to earn money.” WritingLongNovelLong TimeInterrupting Author:Dana Spiotta
“A good novel should be deeply unsettling - its satisfactions should come from its authenticity and its formal coherence. We must feel something crucial is at stake.” FeelsShouldNovelSatisfactionAuthenticityCrucialStakesFormalCoherence Author:Dana Spiotta
“In order to be a living, breathing thing, a novel has to be failed in some kind of way. Or at least that's how I keep writing them.” WayWritingKindOrderNovelBreathing Author:Dana Spiotta
