“When I write fiction, I never try to deliver a message; I just want to tell a story. But I admit that I want the story to be memorable and the characters to touch the reader's heart.” WantWritingTryingHeartCharacterStoriesFictionReaderMessagesMemorable Author:Isabel Allende
“I ended up working on "Chicago Hope" and other things, but always with the idea that, eventually, I would want to take what I'd learned in character drama and try to apply that to the genre that I love, which is science fiction and "The Twilight Zone" type mysteries.” WantTryingIdeasCharacterFictionMysteryTypeDramaScience FictionGenreZoneChicagoTwilightTwilight Zone Author:Remi Aubuchon
“Autobiographical writings, essays, interviews, various other things... All the non-fiction prose I wanted to keep, that was the idea behind this collected volume, which came out about few years ago. I didn't think of Winter Journal, for example, as an autobiography, or a memoir. What it is is a literary work, composed of autobiographical fragments, but trying to attain, I hope, the effect of music.” ThinkingWritingTryingYearsIdeasWantedBehindsFictionEffectsExampleYears AgoWinterVariousMemoirInterviewsProseVolumeJournalAutobiographyEssaysFragmentsNon FictionLiterary WorksWriting Essays Author:Paul Auster
“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
“If there was no risk, it wouldn't be art. It wouldn't be worth making. There is risk even in a fairy tale. Fiction is closest to pure narrative, and pure narrative is simply the logic we try to impose on an ever-changing reality.” IfsTryingArtRealityFictionRiskPureLogicTalesNarrativeFairyFairy TaleClosestRisk ItChanging Reality Author:Chris Abani
“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 was reading Raymond Chandler very much with the feminist eye. In six of his seven novels, it's the woman who presents herself in a sexual way, who is the main bad person. And then you start reading more fiction, whether crime fiction or straight fiction, it's just bad girls trying to make good boys do bad things, going all the way back to Adam and Eve. The woman that thou gavest me made me do it, Adam says to God.” WayTryingPersonsMadeEyeGirlReadingFictionBoysNovelCrimeSixSevenFeministBad ThingsAdamCrime FictionAdam And EveBad GirlGood BoyReading More Author:Sara Paretsky
“I try to use fiction in order to reduce the potentiality of something being true. We produce our own memories so I'm not sure of truth.” TryingUseOrderMemoriesFictionProduceBeing TrueNot Sure Author:Elia Suleiman
“We're trying to make something that lasts in language and there's no question that many fiction writers began as poets and it's hard for me to think of any good fiction writers who don't also read poetry.” ThinkingTryingHardLastsLanguageFictionPoetFiction 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
“When you're writing fiction it's a heightened voice. You're trying to cast a spell, which isn't the same thing as trying to cast someone into it. You are creating a reality but it's a different sort of performance.” WritingTryingDifferentRealityVoiceFictionCreatingPerformancesCastsSpellsWriting Fiction Author:Darryl Pinckney
“You're in a very nice position as an actor when you're portraying a piece of history that actually happened and portraying characters that actually existed. There's so much more to draw on and your research as an actor becomes much easier than if it's some fiction that you're trying to create a world around and background and history.” IfsWorldTryingCharacterActorsFictionPiecesNiceHappenedPositionEasierDrawsResearchBackgroundsVery NicePortraying Author:Jamie Dornan
“Because I write realistic fiction, I generally don't think about fixing anyone - I just think about how I want to feel at the end of the book - And I try to write toward that feeling.” ThinkingWantFeelsWritingTryingBookEndsFeelingsFictionRealisticFixingRealistic Fiction Author:Jacqueline Woodson
“In a way, I see my fiction as having moved in that direction - and the characters as dealing simultaneously with their personal history and with the present in which they are trying to make their way. So that the books are simultaneously about public and interior events. And I am having a great time getting confused and crazed writing about them.” WayWritingTryingBookCharacterFictionEventsMovedConfusedInteriorsGreat TimesPersonal History Author:Frederick Busch
“My work is very eclectic. I write books that range from writing fiction, writing fable where I am very directly trying to imagine alternate worlds, to writing about [Buckminster] Fuller who was the ultimate world man creating all sorts of alternate worlds and believing that they were imminent to my own work of - for instance, a project that I've been working on for some year and a half, two years now that continues to evolve has been what I call Deep Time Photography.” MenWorldWritingTryingYearsBelieveHas BeensTwoBookMy OwnHalfFictionImagineProjectsCreatingPhotographyUltimateInstanceEvolveRangeTwo YearsFablesFiction WritingWriting FictionEclecticBuckminster Fuller Author:Jonathon Keats
“I come from a nation where fantastic fiction has a very low status, unless it fits into some very specific categories or is written by already established authors. I don't by any means try to hide what I write, but the way people think in categories here is pretty extreme: it blots out discussing the actual work on its own terms. That's made me loath to talk about my own work in terms of genre, because once you get a label, it sticks and poof go a slew of potential readers and reviewers because eww, fantasy cooties.” PeopleThinkingWayWritingTryingMeanMadeNationsTermMy OwnFictionFantasyWrittenReaderFitLowsSticksExtremesFantasticLabelsGenreCategoriesDiscussingReviewersCooties Author:Karin Tidbeck
“My documentaries have always been very much constructed in the spirit of dominant cinema. From the time I started making non-fiction, I was mainly interested in designing and creating documentaries like fiction, so it was a natural evolution to try and embark on doing a dramatic narrative.” TryingSpiritNaturalFictionDesignEvolutionCreatingNarrativeCinemaDramaticDominantDocumentariesNon Fiction Author:Brett Morgen
“I try and make non-fiction films that feel like fiction, so I'm always looking for the subtext and that's what really excites me.” FeelsTryingFilmFictionNon FictionSubtext Author:Brett Morgen
“I have a lot of theories about the beneficial effects of fiction, but I'm always trying to get away from them a little bit.” TryingLittlesBitsFictionEffectsTheoryLittle BitGet AwayBeneficialAlways Trying Author:George Saunders
“When somebody you've known for 20 years, and with whom you have a full context, winks at you or whatever, it can be huge. I think in a sense what you're trying to re-create in fiction is that.” ThinkingTryingYearsFictionKnownHuge Author:George Saunders
“My general approach to writing fiction is that you try to have as few conceptual notions as possible and you just respond to the energy that the story is making rather than having a big over plan. I think if you have a big over plan, the danger is that you might just take your plan and then you bore everybody. I always joke that it's like going on a date with index cards. You know, at 7:30 p.m. I should ask about her mother. You keep all the control to yourself but you are kind of insulting to the other person.” IfsThinkingKnowsShouldWritingTryingKindPersonsStoriesBigsMightMotherAsksEnergyFictionPlansDangerApproachJokesNotionCardsBoresInsultingWriting Fiction Author:George Saunders
“I guess it must be a time-of-life thing, looking back and trying to make some sense of who I am and where I've been. It's a weird thing, having to give an account of yourself, to try to make sense of yourself for yourself. I'm not that old, but I have been writing fiction professionally for a long time now. I started so young and went so hard for so long. And I guess it was about feeling I had the space to look over my shoulder.” GivingWritingTryingLooksLongHas BeensHardFeelingsYoungSpaceFictionLong TimeAccountsShouldersWho I AmMake SenseLooking BackWeird ThingsWriting Fiction Author:Tim Winton
“I believe in what science fiction can do, which is it can set up simple rules that it has to follow to try to illuminate something about the present that is somewhat invisible to us.” TryingBelieveI BelieveCan DoSimpleFictionScience FictionI Believe InInvisible Author:Brit Marling
“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
“Whether or not you're writing fiction or you're making sculptures. You're trying to create a space. You're trying to make something where your own epiphanies and your own desires and your own understanding of the world can reveal itself.” WorldWritingTryingDesireUnderstandingSpaceFictionSculptureEpiphanyWriting Fiction Author:Denison Witmer
“I came to fantasy fairly late. For some ten years, I had been happily writing fiction and non-fiction for adults. But I always loved fantasy, whether for adults or young people; and at that particular point in my life, I wanted to try it, to understand it, as part of the process of learning to be a writer. The results were beyond anything I could have foreseen. As I've said often and elsewhere, it was the most creative and liberating experience of my life.” PeopleWritingTryingYearsSaidWantedYoungProcessResultsFictionFantasyCreativeParticularTenLateAdultsElsewhereLiberatingNon FictionWriting FictionForeseen Author:Lloyd Alexander