“I didn’t like it [computer] when I first began using it. Where it’s helped me a lot is in nonfiction which is a kind of different process. You’ve got research, you’ve got your notes, You can block out what you want to work on for the next 10 pages and put it in another file, and then you can kind of carve it into shape” WantFirstsKindDifferentNextProcessFictionShapesComputerPagesResearchNotesWhat You WantBlockFilesNon Fiction Author:Joan Didion
“There's a lot of crap out there. Most of the science fiction films alone are abominations, you know. They're mindless. So you can't learn from those kinds of films.” KnowsKindFilmFictionScience FictionCrapMindlessAbomination Author:Ray Bradbury
“There are certain kinds of people who write science fiction. I think a lot of us married late. A lot of us are mama's boys. I lived at home until I was 27. But most of the writers I know in any field, especially science fiction, grew up late. They're so interested in doing what they do and in their science, they don't think about other things.” PeopleThinkingKnowsWritingKindHomeCertainFictionBoysFieldsGrewLateMarriedGrew UpScience FictionMamaMama's Boy Author:Ray Bradbury
“In a sense, journalism can be both helpful and detrimental to a writer of fiction because the kind of writing you need to do as a journalist is so different. It has to be clear, unambiguous, concise, and as a writer often you are trying to do things that are more ambiguous. I find that writing fiction is often an antidote to reading and writing too much journalism.” NeedsWritingTryingKindDifferentReadingFictionClearToo MuchJournalismJournalistHelpfulAntidoteAmbiguousWriting FictionReading And WritingDetrimentalConcise Author:Aravind Adiga
“The movement for women's liberation was about an emotional transformation, an explosion, a feeling all over the country that things must be different, and ideas about how they should be. I think fiction can capture that kind of thing better than other genres because in fiction you can explore the feelings of your characters - the before and the after.” ThinkingShouldKindIdeasDifferentCountryCharacterFeelingsFictionMovementEmotionalTransformationLiberationGenreCaptureExplosions Author:Alix Kates Shulman
“It takes a certain kind of mind to narrate, to work through character motivation, to be unforgiving to one's writer-self when it comes down to creating the minutiae of detail. Writing fiction requires stamina, a sense of how people's lives work, how people work toward and against one another and, above all, precision.” PeopleWritingMindKindSelfCharacterMotivationCertainFictionCreatingDetailsPrecisionStaminaWriting FictionUnforgivingMinutiae Author:Cate Marvin
“The solutions like freezing zygotes, fertilized eggs, of all kinds of animals and so on, or keeping them in zoos and having arboreta where we have trees, all these things have been promoted. Even getting the complete genetic code of various fishes so we can let them pass away and then we'll pull them back. That is science fiction run amok.” KindHas BeensRunningAnimalFictionTreeSolutionsScience FictionFishesVariousAll KindsCodeEggsPassing AwayZoosFreezing Author:E. O. Wilson
“I love science fiction but I don't like fantastic [cinema]. For example, if you have a magical ring and you can explode the world with it. What are we talking about? You know, it's not interesting. I don't like Lord of the Rings. Even Star Wars, for me, I don't understand this kind of story. But Alien, because the rules of the game are very precise, it could happen. I love science fiction. I have an idea about robots in the future.” IfsKnowsWorldKindIdeasWarStoriesHappensGamesStarsInterestingFictionTalkingLordExampleScience FictionRingsAliensFantasticCinemaPreciseRobotsRules Of The GameScience Love Author:Jean-Pierre Jeunet
“I say at the very end of "Winter Journal" that I do dream about my father often. I think I have a tremendous compassion for him, which has grown over the years. A certain kind of pity for him also in that he was so unrealised as a human being, so dogged, and so shut-off from people in many ways. You know, I've been writing another book, and it's another non-fiction autobiographical work, kind of a compliment to "Winter Journal", and it's just finished.” PeopleThinkingKnowsWayWritingYearsHumansKindBookEndsDreamCertainFatherHuman BeingsFictionCompassionWinterFinishedPityComplimentJournalNon Fiction Author:Paul Auster
“The kind of fiction I'm trying to write is about telling the truth.” WritingTryingKindFictionTelling The Truth Author:Paul Auster
“I got a degree in sociology, didn't read much fiction in college, and I was a pretty political, left-wing type of guy. I wanted to do some kind of work in social change and make things better for the poor man, and I was very romantic and passionate about it.” MenKindWantedPoliticalGuyLeftSocialPoorFictionCollegeTypeDegreesWingsPassionateSociologySocial ChangePoor ManLeft WingVery RomanticType Of GuyRomantic And Passionate Author:Andre Dubus
“I want to keep working. I want to step away from young adult fiction. I want to do theater periodically - Farragut North reminded me how great it is. I started out in theater. I trained in theater and then I kind of fell into film and TV. I want to work with interesting artists, talented actors, talented directors, and talented scripts. Not necessarily leading roles.” WantKindFilmYoungArtistActorsInterestingFictionStepsRolesTvsDirectorsAdultsTheaterScriptsYoung Adult Author:Max Irons
“We see films all the time, whether they have access to all kinds of intellectual property or artifacts, and the one thing that they don't get is story. So I think whether you're talking about a biopic or an action film or a science-fiction film that has all the CGI in the world, if you're not trying to connect with an audience, it doesn't really matter.” IfsThinkingWorldTryingKindMatterStoriesActionFilmFictionTalkingAudienceOne ThingIntellectualScience FictionPropertyAccessAll KindsIntellectual PropertyArtifactsAction FilmsCgi Author:John Ridley
“That's the fine balance of a fiction writer...to be able to give your characters enough freedom to surprise you and yet still maintain some kind of artistic control.” GivingKindStillsEnoughCharacterAbleFictionFineBalanceSurpriseArtisticFiction Writers Author:Alan Lightman
“Comic books were telling me what life was about. This was how I kind of entered life, through fiction.” KindBookFictionComicComic Book Author:Walter Mosley
“Films are always a fiction, not documentary. Even a documentary is a kind of fiction.” KindFilmFictionDocumentaries Author:Philip Seymour Hoffman
“I have friends who are capable of writing a very rough draft and then going back and embroidering - they're sort of the cathedral builders of fiction. I never really know what I'm doing, and all my pleasure's on the level of the line. It's a weird way to move forward. It's kind of like a way to caterpillar your way through these great woods. The best ones, whatever I feel like I'm writing about, some other secret thing will begin to come into focus.” KnowsWayFeelsWritingKindMovingLinesPleasureLevelsSecretFictionFocusCapableWoodsMoving ForwardRoughBuilderCathedralsCaterpillarsRough Drafts Author:Karen Russell
“I don't want to write poems that are just really clear about how I'm aware of all the traps involved in writing poetry; I don't want to write fiction that's about the irresponsibility of writing fiction and I've thrown out a lot of writing that I think was ultimately tainted by that kind of self-awareness.” ThinkingWantWritingKindSelfFictionClearAwarenessInvolvedSelf AwarenessThrownTrapsWriting FictionWriting PoetryTaintedIrresponsibility Author:Ben Lerner
“I think the anti-intellectualism of a lot of contemporary fiction is a kind of despairing of literature's ability to be anything more than perfectly bound blog posts or transcribed sitcoms.” ThinkingKindLiteratureAbilityFictionBoundsContemporaryPostsBlogsSitcomIntellectualismContemporary Fiction Author:Ben Lerner
“Anyway I read more contemporary poetry than contemporary fiction so my mind goes first to a kind of crass "conceptualism" that repeats vanguard gestures of the past minus the politics and historical context.” MindFirstsKindPastFictionHistoricalContemporaryRepeatsGesturesContemporary FictionMinusVanguardCrassHistorical Context Author:Ben Lerner
“I'm aware of narrating certain experiences as they happen or obliterating those experiences with narrative and then those stories - not the experiences themselves - might become material for art. This kind of transformation shows up a lot in 10:04 because the book tracks the transposition of fact into fiction in the New Yorker stor” KindArtBookFactsStoriesShowsMightHappensCertainFictionMaterialsTransformationTrackNarrativeNew Yorkers Author:Ben Lerner
“Fiction doesn't appeal to me because it can describe physical appearances exhaustively or because it can offer access to the inner depths of an array of human characters - neither that kind of "realism" of bodily surfaces nor of individual psychologies seems particularly realistic to me.” HumansKindCharacterSeemsIndividualFictionPsychologyOffersDepthAppearanceSurfaceAccessAppealsRealisticRealismPhysical Appearance Author:Ben Lerner
“The fiction I tend to like is nothing like my own work. I like the kind of writing that shows me things I don't know about, and what I don't know about is the everyday, normal world.” KnowsWorldWritingKindShowsMy OwnFictionNormalEverydayShow Me Author:Jim Woodring
“A lot of time, with stories, I'll start out with a title and try to dream myself into the story that it evokes - a kind of subconscious exercise in which I'm trawling for some kind of entryway into fiction.” TryingKindStoriesDreamFictionExerciseTitlesSubconsciousEvoke Author:Dan Chaon
“There are trappings of science fiction which I kind of embrace, but there are also cliches which I run from.” KindRunningFictionScience FictionEmbraceCliche Author:David Twohy
“I was born in California, raised a vegetarian, and love science fiction, so don't tell me how I need to be in order to fit your standards. When I was younger, those kinds of comments bothered me, but eventually got to a point where I realized I wasn't going to change who I was.” NeedsKindOrderBornFictionFitStandardsAnd LoveScience FictionRaisedI RealizedCaliforniaVegetarianCommentBotheredScience Love Author:Aisha Tyler
“Do you think it interests me that this painting represents two figures? These two figures existed, they exist no more. The sight of them gave me an initial emotion, little by little their real presence grew indistinct they became a fiction for me, then they disappeared, or rather, were turned into problems of all kinds. For me they are no longer two figures but shapes and colours, don't misunderstand me, shapes and colours, though, that sum up the idea of the two figures and preserve the vibration of their existence.” ThinkingKindLittlesTwoIdeasRealProblemInterestEmotionExistenceFictionFiguresPaintingGrewShapesSightAll KindsPreservesColourInitialsVibrations Author:Pablo Picasso
“"Hard" science fiction probes alternative possible futures by means of reasoned extrapolations in much the same way that good historical fiction reconstructs the probable past. Even far-out fantasy can present a significant test of human values exposed to a new environment. Deriving its most cogent ideas from the tension between permanence and change, science fiction combines the diversions of novelty with its pertinent kind of realism.” WayHumansKindMeanIdeasHardPastValuesFictionFantasyEnvironmentTestsScience FictionHistoricalSignificantAlternativesTensionHistorical FictionExposedRealismNoveltyPermanenceDiversionHuman ValuesPertinentNew Environment Author:Jack Williamson
“I am drawn, as a reader, to detail-drenched stories about human lives affected as much by the internal as by the external, the kind of fiction that Jane Smiley nicely describes as 'first and foremost about how individuals fit, or don't fit, into their social worlds.'” WorldFirstsHumansKindStoriesIndividualSocialFictionReaderFitDetailsHuman LifeInternalsAffectedJaneSmiley Author:Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
“Poetry is a kind of gasp, and there it is, a spark on the page. Fiction, on the other hand, is like swamp fire.” KindHandsFictionFirePagesPoetry IsSparksSwamps Author:Joy Kogawa
“And while dollars have little to do with it, the fiction writer should be asking the same question any capable film producer would ask: Is this scene truly necessary? It is the kind of thinking that, put into practice, results in a story with a sense of energy and direction.” ThinkingShouldKindLittlesStoriesFilmAsksEnergyResultsFictionPracticeSceneCapableAskingDollarsProducersFiction Writers Author:Les Standiford
“It's very hard to be a screenwriter. I remember getting a couple of awards. I got a PEN West award a million years ago when I did Running on Empty, and I sat in the room with all these writers. They wrote everything from novels to non-fiction to children's books to journalism - any kind of writing - and I realized that there was no one in the room who would ever read anything I'd written.” WritingYearsKindChildrenBookHardRunningRememberRoomsFictionMillionsNovelWrittenCoupleYears AgoEmptyWestI RealizedJournalismSatPensAwardsNon FictionScreenwritersChildren's Books Author:Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal
“Hopefully, great science fiction films help you think about issues that relate to yourself, whether it's: What's my purpose? Why am I here? What is it that makes me who I am? Those are the kind of questions my favorite science fiction films ask.” ThinkingKindHelpingFilmPurposeAsksFictionIssuesScience FictionMy FavoriteWho I AmHopefullyRelateGreat Science Author:Joseph Kosinski
“Sometimes big budget means explosions! CGI! CGI, the possibilities are so limitless that it begins to be impractical. I'm more interested in the kinds of movies where the science fiction world has a set series of rules and you operate in it because of, maybe, constraints in the budget.” WorldKindMeanSometimesBigsFictionPossibilityScience FictionSeriesBudgetsLimitlessExplosionsConstraintsCgi Author:Brit Marling
“If I would had been born years earlier, I would have been in all the Westerns. It's just the way that the industry goes. But now, we are in an age of a lot of different kinds of fears, and you have the science fiction and horror genres doing our morality plays the same way that they would have done in Westerns. I absolutely accept it. In every respect, fantasy is like doing abstract paintings.” IfsWayYearsKindHas BeensDifferentDonePlayAgeBornFictionAcceptingFantasyPaintingIndustryMoralityHorrorScience FictionGenreAbstractDifferent KindsHorror GenreAbstract Painting Author:Lance Henriksen
“My biggest difference with our film and those kinds of science fiction films is that they are going from one special effect set piece to the next, what we were doing was more of a character study. And I think that is the freedom that you get by doing an Indie film. You can only really do that with a lower budget. So I understand where the conflict is between those two priorities.” ThinkingKindTwoCharacterFilmNextDifferencesFictionStudyPiecesSpecialEffectsConflictScience FictionPrioritiesBudgetsSpecial EffectsIndie Films Author:Duncan Jones
“Even when I think of writing fiction, it's being kind of a liar, a storyteller, a weaver, and there's that sense of how much of this is your life. The story is a way you unravel your life from behind a mask.” ThinkingWayWritingKindStoriesBehindsFictionMaskLiarsBe KindStorytellerWriting FictionWeavers Author:Edwidge Danticat
“...You believe that the kind of story you want to tell might be best received by the science fiction and fantasy audience. I hope you're right, because in many ways this is the best audience in the world to write for. They're open-minded and intelligent. They want to think as well as feel, understand as well as dream. Above all, they want to be led into places that no one has ever visited before. It's a privilege to tell stories to these readers, and an honour when they applaud the tale you tell.” ThinkingWorldWayWantFeelsWritingBelieveWellsKindStoriesDreamMightFictionFantasyAudienceReaderIntelligentScience FictionPrivilegeTalesHonourOpen MindedScience Fiction And Fantasy Author:Orson Scott Card
“For me, wellbehaved books with neat plots and worked-out endings seem somewhat quaint in the face of the largely incoherent reality of modern life; and then again fiction, at least as I write it and think of it, is a kind of religious meditation in which language is the final enlightenment, and it is language, in its beauty, its ambiguity and its shifting textures, that drives my work.” ThinkingWritingKindBookRealitySeemsFacesLanguageReligiousFictionMeditationModernEnlightenmentFinalsPlotShiftingModern LifeAmbiguityTextureNeatQuaint Author:Don DeLillo
“As an actress, I think I really understand that stage where you think you are picking reality in order to feed the fiction, but it happens to be the contrary. It's the fiction that suddenly feeds your reality. And you don't know how it has been done. That's the kind of magical transposition that is art.” ThinkingKnowsKindHas BeensArtDoneRealityHappensOrderFictionKnow HowStageActressesContrary Author:Ludivine Sagnier
“For example, when I was writing Leviathan, which was written both in New York and in Vermont - I think there were two summers in Vermont, in that house I wrote about in Winter Journal, that broken-down house... I was working in an out-building, a kind of shack, a tumble-down, broken-down mess of a place, and I had a green table. I just thought, "Well, is there a way to bring my life into the fiction I'm writing, will it make a difference?" And the fact is, it doesn't make any difference. It was a kind of experiment which couldn't fail.” ThinkingWayWritingWellsKindTwoFactsHouseDifferencesFictionFailingWrittenNew YorkExampleBuildingBrokenSummerTablesGreenWinterExperimentsMessMaking A DifferenceJournalBroken DownVermontShackLeviathan Author:Paul Auster
“It's once I discover the people inside that the story really gets going, and then the formal invention becomes less important. It's just the way in; it's the door; and then what's behind it is always some kind of people, which I think probably makes me more in the tradition of realistic fiction because that's usually what I'm interested in, the people.” PeopleThinkingWayKindImportantStoriesBehindsFictionDoorsTraditionInventionRealisticFormalRealistic Fiction Author:Jess Walter
“Every once in a while a messy character who manifests a REAL body emerges, for instance, Lisbeth Salander - and certainly commercial genre fiction is full of examples of real bodied sexual encounters or violence encounters - but for the most part, and particularly if you are a woman or minority author, your characters' bodies have to fit a kind of norm inside a narrow set of narrative pre-ordained and sanctioned scripts.” IfsKindRealCharacterBodyFictionViolenceExampleFitScriptsInstanceNarrativeGenreEncountersMinoritiesNormMessyLisbeth Salander Author:Lidia Yuknavitch
“There's an imperative to make sure you distinguish fiction from the fact, because if the fact is doing the work, why did you do fiction? And once you raise the question of why - why do fiction? - then you have to answer it in your text as a kind of enactment of the answer.” IfsKindFactsAnswersFictionRaisesImperatives Author:Fred D'Aguiar
“What you create when you're teaching fiction writing is a kind of literary salon, not a social club or a mutual admiration society, not a debating society, not a repair shop, not a fight club or a soap box. It's a place to have a conversation about a story.” WritingKindStoriesFightingSocialFictionTeachingConversationBoxesClubsShopsMutualAdmirationSoapFiction WritingSalonsMutual Admiration Author:John Dufresne
“We should absolutely be concerned with ethical questions - to exactly the same degree as everyone else. It's never my intention to sneak any kind of sermon into a story - I've got no business preaching, and besides, that kind of thing plays poorly in fiction, always has.” ShouldKindPlayStoriesFictionDegreesConcernedIntentionEthicalPreachingSermonsSneakEthical Questions Author:Roy Kesey
“Since it's fiction, the book resonates, at least for me, on various levels, some of which intimate ideas about history but none of which have the kind of directly causal reasoning you cite.” KindBookIdeasLevelsFictionVariousIntimateReasoningCiting Author:Rachel Kushner
“I don't really have those kinds of intentions when I write a scene. I try to follow the internal logic of the fiction, rather than make an argument or an assertion.” WritingTryingKindFictionSceneArgumentLogicIntentionInternalsAssertion Author:Rachel Kushner
“I think for some reason people are drawn to stories of all kinds, for some reason they land harder when they are "true." And yet in fiction, I think there is a lot of deeper truth, too.” PeopleThinkingKindReasonStoriesFictionLandHarderDeeperAll Kinds Author:T Cooper
“I'll never forget reading Chekhov's "A Doctor's Visit" on a train to Hawthorne, New York, and I got to the end - the scene where the patient says goodbye to the doctor and she puts a flower in her hair as a kind of thank you to him - and I felt like a cowboy shot from a canyon's top. This is a different experience from reading a novel, I think. The emotional effect is cumulative. Let's just hope market forces don't send short fiction the way of the dinosaur, because their sales are paltry compared to the novel and this is truly unfortunate.” ThinkingWayKindDifferentEndsReadingForceFeltForgetFictionNovelEffectsNew YorkEmotionalFlowerHairSceneShotsDoctorsTrainPatientGoodbyeNever ForgetUnfortunateCowboySaying GoodbyeDinosaursCanyonsCumulativeDifferent ExperiencesChekhovHawthorne Author:Adam Ross