“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
“The easiest songs to write are pure fiction. There is no limit to how you can tell the story. I find it difficult when I'm replaying an event through a song.” WritingStoriesSongDifficultFictionEventsPureLimits Author:Jason Mraz
“If it's commercial fiction that you want to write, it's story, story, story. You've got to get a story where if you tell it to somebody in a paragraph, they'll go, "Tell me more." And then when you start to write it, they continue to want to read more. And if you don't, it won't work.” IfsWantWritingStoriesFictionParagraph Author:James Patterson
“I used to write my own versions of famous tales, such as William Tell or Robin Hood, and illustrate them myself, too. When I entered my teens, I got more into horror and science fiction and wrote a lot of short stories. A literary education complicated things and for many years I wrote nothing but poetry. Then I got back to story-telling.” WritingYearsStoriesUsedMy OwnFictionHorrorScience FictionComplicatedTalesVersionsShort StoryTeensHoodRobinsRobin HoodComplicated Things Author:Peter Robinson
“...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
“There's a difference between doing memoir and writing a novel. If I had put the story of the boy killing my dog - and that was Eric also, what a little monster he was! - in a novel, even if I took it directly from life, it would be fiction.” IfsWritingLittlesStoriesWould BeDifferencesFictionBoysNovelDogKillingMonstersMemoirMy DogEricDoing Me Author:Paul Auster
“As a fiction writer, of course, you need to take some leeway with certain aspects of history to make the story work.” NeedsStoriesCertainCoursesFictionAspectFiction Writers Author:Joseph Boyden
“The first fiction I ever wrote was short stories. I was writing short stories in my late teens and early twenties, and I think it's how you teach yourself to write.” ThinkingWritingFirstsStoriesFictionTeachLateTwentiesShort StoryTeensWriting ShortWriting Short Stories Author:Jess Walter
“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
“Narrative stories are nothing but models of karma and causality - how one thing leads to another. And a lot of narrative fiction is about causality that we don't immediately understand.” StoriesFictionOne ThingModelsKarmaNarrativeCausality Author:Jess Row
“The resistance to my work, and to my way of writing, has been there from the beginning. The first things I wrote were these short short stories collected in At the Bottom of the River, and at least three of them are one sentence long. They were printed in The New Yorker, over the objections of many of the editors in the fiction department.” WayWritingFirstsLongHas BeensStoriesThreeFictionRiversBottomSentencesResistanceMy WayDepartmentEditorsShort StoryPrintedNew YorkersObjectionsOne Sentence Author:Jamaica Kincaid
“I love fiction. I like reading short stories. Cupcakes, pop songs, Polaroids, and short stories. They all raise and answer questions in a short space. I like Lorrie Moore. Amy Hempel. Tim O'Brien. Raymond Carver. All the heartbreakers.” HeartStoriesSongReadingSpaceAnswersFictionRaisesPopsShort StoryAmyPop SongCupcakesCarverPolaroidsHeartbreakerTim O Brien Author:Laurel Nakadate
“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
“Dogwalker is a book of fiction, with characters based on the types of people who truly exist in the world. I've seen them and know them - some of them I know really well. Although the stories are sometimes gritty and unsettling, my hope is that in the end they hit a positive note.” PeopleKnowsWorldWellsBookEndsSometimesCharacterStoriesFictionTypeNotes Author:Arthur Bradford
“I love outsider stories. And I also like a lot of genre fiction, too. So I wanted to write a literary book that flirted with thriller and fantasy and even science fiction. I wanted the coming-of-age story and the love story to be about "outsiderdom" - one of the themes I am most interested in.” WritingBookStoriesAgeWantedFictionFantasyScience FictionLove StoryGenreThemeComing Of AgeOutsidersThrillers Author:Porochista Khakpour
“If a reader believes that everything in nonfiction or history is just objectively true, I don't really know what to tell them, except that at least in fiction, the choice of what perspective and bias to tell a given story from - which is always a deliberate choice - is foregrounded and clear.” IfsKnowsBelieveStoriesChoicesGivenFictionClearPerspectiveReaderNonfictionBiasDeliberate Author:Kathleen Rooney
“With the historical fictions, I was already doing so much research, and so much of the stories was anchored by historical truth that the move to nonfiction didn't feel all that dramatic - just another half-step to the right.” FeelsStoriesMovingHalfFictionStepsResearchHistoricalDramaticHistorical FictionNonfictionHistorical Truth Author:Debra Dean
“The Israel stories were really hard for me to write, because I think that my book is very much about politics, but it isn't political. It really was important for me to not have a political agenda at all, because I have a hard time stomaching any political fiction that feels message-y.” ThinkingFeelsWritingImportantBookHardStoriesPoliticalFictionMessagesIsraelHard TimesAgendasPolitical Agendas Author:Molly Antopol
“In fiction, I have a residual guilt when I focus on story over language or mood or whatever - the more "literary" things. In screenwriting, I don't have that guilt because story is the only thing. Character, dialogue, everything else - they feed into and drive story.” CharacterStoriesLanguageFictionFocusGuiltMoodDialogueScreenwritingResidual Author:Nick Antosca
“The short story that eventually grew into Constellation was the first fiction set in Russia that I'd ever written, and that was right around the time I was giving up on a doomed, never-to-be-seen first novel. While I saw it could be something bigger, in hindsight fortuitous timing was as responsible as anything.” GivingFirstsStoriesFictionNovelSawsWrittenGrewGiving UpBiggerResponsibleRussiaShort StoryTimingDoomedConstellationsHindsightFortuitous Author:Anthony Marra
“We all know to feel sympathy for those who've suffered from drug addiction, child abuse, and terminal illness, so the set up elicits an emotional response that the story itself very well may not earn. Energy generated by the fiction itself is likely to produce more light.” KnowsFeelsWellsMayChildrenStoriesLightEnergyFictionProduceEmotionalDrugAbuseResponseAddictionIllnessChild AbuseDrug AddictionDrug AddictTerminalEmotional ResponseTerminal Illness Author:Anthony Marra
“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
“I do write fiction, and I find it more difficult, but also more liberating. On the one hand, you can make up the story, but you have to make up the story.” WritingStoriesHandsDifficultFictionLiberating Author:Emily Susan Rapp
“I more seriously considered publishing it under a pseudonym than I considered publishing it as fiction. I think the decision to write it as nonfiction happened at the very outset of the process, because the overwhelming impetus for writing this book was to understand what the experience meant, and to override my own reductions and rationalizations, whatever story I had that was not true. It didn't sit well with me and I needed to answer that. That's sort of the reason I write everything.” ThinkingWritingWellsBookReasonStoriesProcessMy OwnDecisionAnswersFictionHappenedNeededOverwhelmingNonfictionPublishingReductionImpetusPseudonyms Author:Melissa Febos
“If you're a writer, you don't serve genres. Genres serve you. Like, if you're writing a science fiction story set on a spaceship, you don't have to have someone thrown out an airlock.” IfsWritingStoriesFictionScience FictionGenreThrownSpaceshipsFiction Stories Author:Charlie Jane Anders
“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
“The tales are quite hard to remember and I found that going back to it between bouts of writing fiction, I was having to retrace my steps quite a lot, because the stories are very intricate and the material is elusive, and possibly with age, my memory is not as malleable as it used to be.” WritingHardStoriesAgeRememberUsedFoundMemoriesFictionStepsMaterialsTalesUsed To BeElusiveIntricateWriting Fiction Author:Marina Warner
“I like fiction that deals with matters that are of burning importance to us in our private lives. And not all short stories are like that. In general, short stories - and maybe this is a little bit off-topic - but I think short stories have this bad association with, like, waiting rooms.” ThinkingLittlesMatterStoriesBitsWaitingRoomsDealsFictionLittle BitImportanceBurningShort StoryAssociationTopicsBad AssPrivate LifeWaiting Rooms Author:Lorin Stein
“A lot of people who want to see the short story have a renaissance of readership - they tend to think of short stories, and sometimes poems too, as being well-suited to the way we now live, with all of these broken-up bits of time. I hope they're right, but my sense is that our fiction reading has become, if anything, more cherished as a kind of escape from fragmentation.” PeopleIfsThinkingWayWantWellsKindSometimesStoriesReadingBitsFictionBrokenShort StoryRenaissanceBroken UpReadershipFragmentation Author:Lorin Stein
“When I write a book I write the best that I can and so much of that for me is following the book's demands, the subject's requirements - I love books, I always have. They have always been one of the places where I have felt very happy in the world. When I was younger, I loved to read genre fiction - I loved the magic-carpet ride of story! Now I need other things - I need the beautiful particular and strange language and form which brings a writer's book to life in me and speaks to my intellect, and, dare I say it, to my soul.” WorldNeedsWritingI CanBookSoulStoriesBeautifulFormSpeakLanguageFeltFictionMagicSubjectsParticularStrangeDemandFollowingDareIntellectMy SoulGenreRequirementsVery HappyCarpet Author:Micheline Aharonian Marcom
“As a writer, I was deliberately creating an alternate world, and then populating it with experiences and people that I knew in this world, but I'd shake up the mix considerably. And about the same time that the memoir was becoming the dominant popular literary form in the mid to late 90s, I started reading writers who were deliberately playing with the notion of "truth" and "fiction" - that struck me as a much more interesting way to tell certain stories, particularly in the realm of comedy.” PeopleWorldWayStoriesFormCertainReadingInterestingFictionComedyThis WorldBecomingLateCreatingNotionMemoirRealmsShakesDominantInteresting Ways Author:Kevin Keck
“The biggest problem in the fictional treatment of sex is that it's not treated as part of the story but as a pause from the story. The best sex scenes in fiction are the ones that advance the story.” StoriesProblemSexFictionSceneTreatedTreatmentPauses Author:K. M. Soehnlein
“Historical novels are about costumery. I think that's the magic and mystery of fiction. I don't want to write historical fiction but I do want the story to have the feel of history. There's a difference.” ThinkingWantFeelsWritingStoriesDifferencesFictionNovelMagicMysteryHistoricalHistorical FictionHistorical Novels Author:Chang-Rae Lee
“I love really exploring... you know, a cop drama for example is a great way to explore class in this country and explore, you know, really, identity in the country and who we are in a way that is extremely exciting, but it's also real, you know, it's also real people and real drama. The same with the military. I mean, a good science fiction story is also great.” PeopleKnowsWayMeanRealCountryStoriesFictionClassMilitaryExampleIdentityDramaExcitingScience FictionWho We AreCopExploringReal YouGood ScienceFiction Stories Author:Ethan Hawke
“Back in the day, a lot of our instructors in nonfiction were actually fiction scholars. So they would bring in stories as models for the essay. And in some ways that's a good idea, because we can all learn from other genres. But I think it also made me realize that I literally didn't have an essay model, and that if I wanted one I would have to find it.” IfsThinkingWayMadeIdeasStoriesWantedRealizingFictionModelsGenreGood IdeasNonfictionScholarEssaysInstructorsBack In The Day Author:John D'Agata
“The fatal flaw of most utopian visions is that they're fundamentally static, and that's not a comfortable place for humans to live. Fourier was very good at imagining a utopia that is constantly changing and very busy, but a vision of paradise that would have been most tantalizing to an underfed overworked factory worker in 1840 doesn't have much appeal in fiction because it's not a story.” HumansHas BeensStoriesFictionVisionComfortableWorkersBusyVery GoodAppealsParadiseFlawsFactoriesUtopiaStaticUtopianFactory WorkersTantalizingFatal FlawsFourier Author:Christine Jennings
“I grew up reading crime fiction mysteries, true crime - a lot of true crime - and it is traditionally a male dominated field from the outside, but from the inside what we know, those of us who read it, is that women buy the most crime fiction, they are by far the biggest readers of true crime, and there's a voracious appetite among women for these stories, and I know I feel it - since I was quite small I wanted to go to those dark places.” KnowsFeelsStoriesWantedReadingDarkFictionMysteryCrimeFieldsGrewReaderGrew UpMalesAppetiteCrime FictionDark Places Author:Megan Abbott
“I'm always looking for context in which people tell stories. In "Fight Club" it's these support groups for dying people, and then in "Choke" it's 12-step recovery groups. In one novel it's artists' colonies, in another novel it's a diary form that submariners' wives typically keep so that when their husband comes back from serving on a submarine they have an accounting of their spouse's time. So I'm always looking for, number one, a non-fiction context - because you can tell a more outrageous story if you use a non-fiction form.” PeopleIfsStoriesUseFormArtistFightingNumbersFictionStepsSupportNovelWifeGroupsDyingHusbandClubsRecoveryServingSpouseDiariesNon FictionOutrageousChokeAccountingColonySubmarinesSupport Groups12 Step Recovery12 Step Author:Chuck Palahniuk
“The short story feels like the most natural length for prose fiction, or certainly for the kind of ideas and situations I like to encounter.” FeelsKindIdeasStoriesNaturalFictionSituationEncountersProseLengthShort Story Author:Nicholas Royle
“I really like stories, so in a way it doesn't matter for me if they are real or fiction.” IfsWayRealMatterStoriesFiction Author:Volker Bertelmann
“That is many poets don't know how to tell a story and they don't have a sense of how to put things in order to tell a story and we thought the poets could learn from fiction writers something about developing a character over time who wasn't just you and also creating a narrative structure.” KnowsCharacterStoriesOrderFictionKnow HowPoetCreatingStructureDevelopingNarrativeFiction WritersNarrative Structure Author:Edward Hirsch
“I think the deepest thing is that many fiction writers tell stories but are not elegant writers. But, we're not writing journalism when we're making literature.” ThinkingWritingStoriesLiteratureFictionJournalismElegantFiction Writers Author:Edward Hirsch
“Sometimes journalists ask me, "What's the message?" There is no message. I think that fiction should not be trying to give messages. Just tell a story.” ThinkingGivingShouldTryingSometimesStoriesAsksFictionMessagesJournalistAsk Me Author:Isabel Allende
“I've always loved sister stories in fiction, from the time I was little, reading about Beezus and Ramona. I've always wanted to write a sister story.” WritingLittlesStoriesWantedReadingFiction Author:Emily Giffin
“Speed is not an indicator of quality in terms of fiction. That's true of one's relative slowness or swiftness - taking 10 years to write a book or taking 10 days to write a book (or a comic or a film or an angry postcard) guarantees nothing in terms of how good or how bad that story is.” WritingYearsBookStoriesFilmTermFictionQualityAngrySpeedComicGuaranteesRelativeIndicatorsSlownessPostcardsSwiftness Author:Chuck Wendig
“Every good story needs a complication. We learn this fiction-writing fundamental in courses and workshops, by reading a lot or, most painfully, through our own abandoned story drafts. After writing twenty pages about a harmonious family picnic, say, or a well-received rock concert, we discover that a story without a complication flounders, no matter how lovely the prose. A story needs a point of departure, a place from which the character can discover something, transform himself, realize a truth, reject a truth, right a wrong, make a mistake, come to terms.” NeedsWritingWellsMatterCharacterStoriesCoursesReadingTermRealizingMistakeFictionRocksPagesTwentiesFundamentalsVery GoodLovelyProseRejectsConcertsAbandonedHarmoniousGood StoryDepartureWorkshopsFiction WritingComplicationPicnicsRock Concerts Author:Monica Wood
“I feel akin to [William] Shakespeare in the sense that, as I see it, he lived to dramatize the unfailingly exciting, unfathomably strange interplay among human beings that constitutes "scenes" in his plays, and constitutes "story" in prose fiction.” FeelsHumansPlayStoriesHuman BeingsFictionStrangeSceneExcitingProse Author:Joyce Carol Oates
“There's nothing I love more than a great truth-is-stranger-than-fiction story.” StoriesFictionTruth IsStrangerStranger Than FictionFiction Stories Author:Jeff Feuerzeig
“When I read any book, if it's really good I get lost in the writing whether it's fiction or non-fiction. I'm in the story not thinking about who wrote it.” IfsThinkingWritingBookStoriesLostFictionNon Fiction Author:Jeff Feuerzeig