“So much history, if you or I were to write it, could seem a fiction. These separations, these lines that tell us this is fiction or non-fiction, that this is history or this is a novel, are often useless.” IfsWritingSeemsLinesFictionNovelSeparationUselessNon Fiction Author:Jamaica Kincaid
“I do find stories - or literary fiction - an apt form for analyzing the world. And especially for trying to imagine the other. An agenda, again, that seems more important now than ever.” WorldTryingImportantStoriesSeemsFormFictionImagineAgendasAnalyzing Author:Jim Shepard
“People seem to want to read more nonfiction than fiction.” PeopleWantSeemsFictionNonfiction Author:Bonnie Jo Campbell
“I'm drawn to fiction that hints at nonfiction, that blurs or seems to blur the boundaries between invention and autobiography.” SeemsFictionBoundariesInventionNonfictionAutobiographyHintsBlur Author:Garth Greenwell
“I use biography, I use literary connections (as with Platen - this seems to me extremely helpful for appreciating the nuances of Mann's and Aschenbach's sexuality), I use philosophical sources (but not in the way many Mann critics do, where the philosophical theses and concepts seem to be counters to be pushed around rather than ideas to be probed), and I use juxtapositions with other literary works (including Mann's other fiction) and with works of music.” WayIdeasUseSeemsFictionSourceConceptsAppreciateConnectionsPhilosophicalCriticsIncludingSexualityHelpfulBiographiesNuanceThesisJuxtapositionLiterary Works Author:Philip Kitcher
“The best writing advice I ever got was "Keep moving forward, don't retreat into rewrites." The worst came from a book that said "Writing fiction is like telling lies," which just seems stupid to me.” WritingSaidBookSeemsMovingLyingFictionWorstAdviceStupidMoving ForwardRetreatKeep MovingKeep Moving ForwardWriting AdviceWriting FictionTelling Lies Author:David B. Coe
“To me experimental fiction ultimately is about the experiment and I'm not interested in experiments for their own sake, and if anything I've always steered a bit clear of that kind of thing, because it seems gimmicky to play around with text rather than do the work of telling a story and creating characters.” IfsKindPlayCharacterStoriesSeemsBitsFictionClearCreatingSakeExperimentsNot InterestedCreating Characters Author:Steve Erickson
“Fiction writers have their own world, and poets have their own world, and literary criticism has sort of passed over into cultural studies in the university, and so on. They seem more disconnected from each other than they did when I first began to write.” WorldWritingFirstsSeemsFictionStudyPoetCriticismUniversityFiction WritersDisconnectedLiterary Criticism Author:Robert Hass
“With a novel, you have the reader with you a lot longer, and you owe him a lot more. Obviously you have to have a plot - I say "obviously," although I think a lot of fiction doesn't, and nothing seems to happen. But to me, there should be something that happens, and it should be at least vaguely plausible. And because the readers are going to be with these characters for a long time, you have to get to know them and like them and want to know what happens to them.” ThinkingKnowsWantShouldLongCharacterSeemsHappensFictionNovelReaderLong TimePlotPlausible Author:Dave Barry
“In fact, people seem to be tired of fiction now. There are so many other ways of exploring humanity - by ethnology, psychoanalysis, and so on. It's a little boring to make up stories. So many people think that it's better to be very close to reality and to recount one's life as it is rather than to fictionalize, as they say, that is to transpose, and therefore to cheat.” PeopleThinkingWayLittlesFactsStoriesRealitySeemsHumanityFictionTiredBoringCheatExploringPsychoanalysis Author:Simone de Beauvoir
“So much of what I am doing in my fiction is just trying to get into interesting places in terms of language or form, places that don't bore me. And this happens via hundreds of quick micro-decisions that are done "to taste," so to speak. So the experience is one of groping toward that interesting place - trying to leap away from anything that seems boring, or about which I don't have strong opinions. Essentially trying to avoid that moment where, devoid of any strong feeling, I start conceptualizing.” TryingDoneMomentsFeelingsSeemsHappensFormSpeakLanguageStrongTermDecisionInterestingFictionOpinionTasteBoringThat MomentLeapBoresStrong FeelingInteresting PlacesStrong Opinions Author:George Saunders
“I have a process that I seem to always, to some degree, as a writer, adhere to, but I certainly have never imposed the way I write a novel on my students. When I had students, I never said, "You should never start writing a novel until you have the last sentence." I never did that, and I wouldn't do it now, but people now seem so interested in the process [of writing fiction] that I have to constantly make it clear when I describe mine that I'm not being prescriptive. I'm not proselytizing.” PeopleWayShouldWritingSaidSeemsLastsProcessFictionNovelClearStudentsMinesDegreesSentencesWriting FictionProselytizing Author:John Irving