“For so many of my characters, they were political in their own countries and they risked their lives for certain political beliefs that they had, only to be brought to America where they're not treated like Americans - they're just not really treated like anything.” CountryCharacterAmericaPoliticalCertainBeliefTreatedPolitical Beliefs Author:Molly Antopol
“It was this feeling for a lot of my characters, who are dissidents or banned artists and writers, that they had had to fight living under so much surveillance, and then suddenly they come to America and they're like, I'm not being surveilled - I'm not even being noticed at all.” CharacterFeelingsAmericaArtistFightingSurveillanceBannedDissidentsArtists And Writers Author:Molly Antopol
“With the Israel stories, it was for me the most surprising way the title would fit in. I kept thinking about, for a lot of my Israeli characters, what it was like to inherit such a complicated and symbiotic relationship to America and to feel how tangled that is, and it's nothing that they chose to do themselves.” ThinkingWayFeelsCharacterStoriesAmericaFitIsraelComplicatedTitlesSurprisingIsraeliTangled Author:Molly Antopol
“So it was doing all this research or going to the archives or doing all these interviews or traveling, and then trying as much as I can to delete all of that research in a later draft so that all the reader cares about is the characters.” TryingI CanCharacterCareReaderResearchInterviewsArchives Author:Molly Antopol
“It's funny - for a long time, I didn't know I was writing a book. I was writing stories. For me, each story took so long and took so much out of me, that when I finished it, I was like, Oh my gosh, I feel like I've poured everything from myself into this, and then I'd get depressed for a week. And then once I was ready to write a new story, I would want to write about something that was completely different, so I would search for a totally different character with a different set of circumstances.” KnowsWantFeelsWritingLongBookDifferentCharacterStoriesWeekReadyCircumstancesLong TimeFinishedWriting A BookDifferent CharactersWriting StoriesOh My Gosh Author:Molly Antopol
“So if there was a way that I knew something about my character's desires or the things that they were resisting because I was saving it for some grand epiphany moment for my readers, I just feel like that's when you can feel the machine at work in a story. That's when you can feel the writer pulling the strings of the puppet.” IfsWayFeelsMomentsCharacterStoriesDesireReaderMachinesSavingStringsPullingPuppetsResistingEpiphany Author:Molly Antopol
“So in the drafting process, whenever I would discover something about what my character wanted or didn't want, I immediately just wanted my character to admit to that so I could get to the next, more interesting level in the story.” WantCharacterStoriesWantedNextProcessInterestingLevelsDrafting Author:Molly Antopol
“I felt like if I could get the epiphany out of the way in my drafting process, through my eighth or tenth draft, then that can just be part of how I've assembled the character, and then we can move on and move forward with it. In general, I don't ever want to feel smarter than my characters, because I just feel like that's not a great way to write a story.” IfsWayWantFeelsWritingCharacterStoriesMovingFeltProcessMoving ForwardIf I CouldSmarterEpiphanyDrafting Author:Molly Antopol
“The stories I love the most are where the author has a lot of empathy for everyone. The author loves their characters and takes their situations really seriously, and you feel like you're just dropped into a different world.” WorldDifferentCharacterSituationLike YouEmpathy Author:Molly Antopol
“It is more important to just be as honest as I can about my characters than to write some really great sentence.” WritingImportantCharacterHonestReally Great Author:Molly Antopol
