“In all my documentaries I did all the camera work, but in fiction I didn't want to do it myself. I think the machinery is so heavy and demanding that you would leave the actors alone for a long time.” ThinkingWantLongActorsFictionLong TimeCamerasHeavyDocumentariesMachinery Author:Pirjo Honkasalo
“I'm a storyteller, and there's some genres I like. I don't think I'm ever going to do science fiction, but I want to do a musical one day. I want to tell stories, I don't really try to get boxed in by a specific genre.” ThinkingWantTryingStoriesFictionOne DayScience FictionMusicalGenreStoryteller Author:Spike Lee
“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
“People want movies to be one thing or another; they want it be fact or fiction.” PeopleWantFactsFictionOne Thing Author:Laurel Nakadate
“Even though I always claimed that I didn't want to write about something - once I wasn't writing fiction, anyway; I think for me the change from fiction to poetry was that in fiction I was writing about something, in poetry I was writing something.” ThinkingWantWritingFictionWriting Fiction Author:Vito Acconci
“Read non-fiction. History, biology, entomology, mineralogy, paleontology. Get a bodyguard and do fieldwork. Find your inner fish. Don't publish too soon. Not before you have read Thomas Mann in any case. Learn by copying, sentence by sentence some of the masters. Copy Coetzee's or Sebald's sentences and see what happens to your story. Consider creative non-fiction if you want to stay in South Africa. It might be the way to go. Never neglect back and hamstring exercises, otherwise you won't be able to write your novel. One needs one's buttocks to think.” IfsThinkingWayWantNeedsWritingStoriesMightHappensAbleFictionCasesNovelCreativeMastersExerciseSouthFishesSentencesBiologyNeglectCopiesSouth AfricaPublishNon FictionCopyingBodyguardPaleontologyButtocksFieldworkHamstringsCoetzee Author:Marlene van Niekerk
“When you play a non-fiction character it is more responsibility than when you are playing a fiction character because that person lived, and you do want to pay respect to that.” WantPersonsPlayCharacterPayFictionResponsibilityNon Fiction Author:Bryan Cranston
“Scientists are embarrassed by science fiction; they want to distance themselves as much as possible. ... I think there's nothing to be ashamed of [and that] we should take science fiction seriously.” ThinkingWantShouldFictionScientistScience FictionDistanceAshamedEmbarrassed Author:Michio Kaku
“By and large, serious fiction was the work of victims who portrayed victims for an audience of victims who, it was oddly assumed, would want to see their lives realistically portrayed.” WantFictionAudienceSeriousVictim Book:Screening history Source: Screening history
“There's always someone kicking guns. We wanted ["Badlands"] to be a world without guns and bullets, where martial arts was the form of fighting and defense and attack. Martial arts is king in this world. That was the first thing. We didn't want it to be a period piece either. We felt those are overdone and stuffy. That was what lead us to explore that area of science fiction and future, a world we can create and control.” WorldWantFirstsArtWantedFormFightingFeltFictionPiecesThis WorldKingsPeriodsArt IsGunAreasScience FictionDefenseMartial ArtsBulletsKicking Author:Miles Millar
“There are people you do not want to upset in the world - the politically disenfranchized who feel they have nothing to lose, those who feel that the time has come for revolution ... then out on the edges beyond any of those are science fiction fans whose favorite show has been canceled in an untimely way.” PeopleWorldWayWantFeelsHas BeensShowsLosesFictionFansRevolutionScience FictionEdgesUpsetNothing To Lose Author:Neil Gaiman
“I want to do some fiction writing, I've had some pretty good luck with short stories, I'd like to do a couple of larger things.” WantWritingStoriesFictionCoupleLuckShort StoryGood LuckFiction Writing Author:Janis Ian
“I don't think it's good when entertainment tries to proselytize and I don't think people ultimately want someone showing up in their living room and just hectoring at them all day long. But if you can create a space where people are caught up in something - whether it's a drama, a comedy, a romantic comedy, or science fiction - that's when people give over their minds and allow their emotions to flow.” PeopleIfsThinkingWantGivingTryingMindLongSpaceRoomsEmotionFictionComedyDramaFlowScience FictionCaughtEntertainmentCaught UpLiving RoomShowing Up Author:John Ridley
“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
“In fiction, you can be as true as you want. Real life is a different story.” WantDifferentRealStoriesLife IsFictionReal Life Author:Katherine Center
“Politically I also don't believe anymore that we can only have one voice to a story, it's like having one radio station to represent a country. You want the politics of any complicated situation to be complicated in a book of fiction or nonfiction.” WantBelieveBookCountryStoriesVoiceFictionSituationDon't BelieveRadioComplicatedStationsNonfictionRadio Stations Author:Michael Ondaatje
“The world is a very complex and interesting place and that is what I really want my fiction to say: wake up to how amazing the world is.” WorldWantInterestingFictionWake UpComplexesInteresting Places Author:Dean Koontz
“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
“...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
“I hate my life. I'm at the point where I want to hear about other people's lives. it's like switching from fiction to biography.” PeopleWantHateFictionI HateBiographiesSwitchingHate My LifeI Hate My Life Book:Americana Source: Americana
“I often give this metaphor where I say that writing short fiction is like surfing, while writing a novel is like navigating with your car. So when you navigate with your car, you want to get somewhere. When you surf, you don't want to get somewhere, you just don't want to fall off your board.” WantGivingWritingFallFictionNovelCarMetaphorBoardsSurfingSurfNavigateWriting Short Author:Etgar Keret
“I would never never read a work of fiction and want to know about the person's life.” KnowsWantPersonsFiction Author:Jamaica Kincaid
“I spend most of my time reading non-fiction of all sorts. Then poetry. Then fiction to blurb. Then fiction I want to read.” WantReadingFictionMy TimeNon Fiction Author:Jim Shepard
“And there are rules for crime fiction. Or if not rules, at least expectations and you have to give the audience what it wants.” IfsWantGivingFictionAudienceCrimeExpectationsCrime Fiction Author:Tod Goldberg
“People seem to want to read more nonfiction than fiction.” PeopleWantSeemsFictionNonfiction Author:Bonnie Jo Campbell
“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
“Regarding fiction, our concern shouldn't be the author's origin (and of course I am forgetting the sales people right here), because that is actually merely a simplified, almost insulting judgment of the book by its cover - or rather by the name and origin of its author - an act of discrimination if we want to say it in a more provoking way, but at the least an act of ignorance and false empathy.” PeopleIfsWayWantBookCoursesNamesForgetFictionIgnoranceJudgmentEmpathyConcernDiscriminationProvokingInsultingSales People Author:Sasa Stanisic
“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 had artists that refused to work on Chappie if they were working on a design that actually said Denel on the side of the thing. But anyway, it's the blurring of fiction and reality that was appealing and I certainly did not want them to be in the movie and not be themselves.” IfsWantSaidRealityArtistSidesFictionDesignFiction And Reality Author:Neill Blomkamp
“Of course it's possible for political essays to be artful. I just want to call into question the dominance of content over form in the history of the essay. I want us to recognize that there's art involved in making this stuff, because we still don't approach the constructed nature of the essay with the same appreciation that we do poetry or fiction.” WantArtStillsFormPoliticalCoursesStuffFictionInvolvedApproachAppreciationEssaysWant UDominance Author:John D'Agata
“I definitely want to write some fiction, for sure. I already have half of the next book. I already have it all mapped out. I'm ready. I'm ready to bring it to the world.” WorldWantWritingBookNextHalfFictionReady Author:Moshe Kasher
“I had seen the gay social chronicle done abundantly and done very well. And I didn't want to do any more of that myself, I wanted us to be included in the popular mainstream of entertainment fiction.” WantWellsDoneWantedSocialFictionGayEntertainmentMainstreamChronicles Author:Christopher Rice
“I want to write some books. Books that have nothing to do with music, just some fiction type of books for a whole different audience of people.” PeopleWantWritingBookDifferentWholeFictionAudienceType Author:Jhene Aiko
“I think of poetry as a very inclusive term. Still, it's interesting that people want to make the distinction. I love the magazine Double Room for that reason (contributors have to write about their ideas on the prose poem/flash fiction).” PeopleThinkingWantWritingStillsIdeasReasonTermInterestingRoomsFictionMagazinesProseDistinctionFlashContributors Author:Matthea Harvey
“With fiction, it could be about anything. It just has to be good writing, like Maria Semple's "Where'd You Go, Bernadette," which I read recently. I want to forget I have a book in my hand.” WantWritingBookHandsForgetFictionBe GoodGood Writing Author:Cheryl Strayed
“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
“Having done, you know, science fiction, I didn't want to get trapped in science fiction. So my eclecticism was my only conscious choice. I didn't want to find myself in a niche that I couldn't get out of.” KnowsWantDoneChoicesFictionConsciousScience FictionTrappedNiche Author:Nicholas Meyer
“In fiction, it's as if you enter a dream world that you created, but your characters have their own free will. They don't do what you want them to do - they get into trouble, do drugs, fight over petty things, and do outrageous things that you wouldn't want your children to do. In other words, you can only provide the background, the seeds - in my case the background of the Vietnamese refugee.” IfsWorldWantChildrenCharacterDreamFightingFictionCasesTroubleDrugOur ChildrenSeedsWhat You WantBackgroundsYour ChildrenFree WillRefugeePettyOutrageousVietnameseDream WorldVietnamese Refugees Author:Andrew Lam
“However, in my fiction, I want to give an even further warning of where we're heading. And so, in "Heartland," you have people selling off their topsoil, and an underwater oil spill that has lasted over three-hundred days.” PeopleWantGivingThreeFictionHundredOilSellingWarningHeadingsSpillsUnderwaterOil SpillTopsoil Author:Alexander Weinstein
“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
“People who wrote literary novels about the past probably didn't want them pegged as historical fiction. Certainly that was true in England.” PeopleWantPastFictionNovelEnglandHistoricalHistorical Fiction Author:Hilary Mantel
“I love the resource of the Internet. I use it all the time. Anything I'm writing - for example, if I'm writing a scene about Washington D.C. and I want to know where this monument is, I can find it right away, I can get a picture of the monument, it just makes your life so much easier, especially if you're writing fiction. You can check stuff so much quicker, and I think that's all great for writers.” IfsThinkingKnowsWantWritingI CanUseStuffFictionExampleInternetEasierSceneResourcesChecksMonumentWriting Fiction Author:Dave Barry
“[The Women's Room] is very much a white woman's piece of fiction, for sure. But for me, as a white woman, I related to a lot of it and continue to as I've gotten older, and especially at this moment in time, I want to read it again.” WantMomentsWhiteRoomsFictionPiecesRelatedMoments In Time Author:June Diane Raphael
“I think I can do whatever I want with fiction, but the more documentary it is, the better it will be because that's what I'm good at. I'm good at observing people's behavior and putting these unspoken things into movie contexts in ways that other people can sometimes miss.” PeopleThinkingWayWantI CanSometimesCan DoFictionMissingBehaviorDocumentariesObservingUnspoken Author:Robert Greene
“Ultimately, I want a peak experience in reading, and that is sometimes difficult to find in contemporary fiction. I'm not interested in books that are just clever and well executed; polish doesn't impress me, and I don't care about a merely capable sentence. Life is short; I want a confrontation with high art. I want soul.” WantWellsArtBookSoulSometimesCareLife IsReadingDifficultFictionCapableDon't CareSentencesCleverContemporaryI Don't CareNot InterestedImpressLife Is ShortPolishConfrontationContemporary FictionHigh ArtPeak Experiences Author:C.E. Morgan
“Maybe I'm perverse, but the question of "rooting" for a character, or setting out to write a character for whom other people will root, has never had anything to do with why I read or write fiction. As long as the writing and story remain alive, intense, invigorating, provoking, the characters can be as demonic or saintly as the author wants.” PeopleWantWritingLongCharacterStoriesFictionAliveRootsIntenseSettingSettingsProvokingDemonicInvigorating Author:James Lasdun
“There are some serious limitations in Mo Yan's situation as a writer in China today - just as there are for Jia Zhangke, one of the world's greatest film directors. He can only phrase his dissent obliquely, in his art. Writers in "free" societies labor under no such constraints. They can write more or less whatever they want in both their fiction and their commentary. Yet so many of them look oddly inhibited, even timid, and depressingly a couple of prominent figures actually positioned themselves to the right of their governments, intelligence agencies, and corporations.” WorldWantWritingLooksArtGovernmentTodayFilmFictionSituationFiguresSeriousCoupleDirectorsLaborChinaLimitationCorporationsPhrasesAgencyDissentConstraintsCommentaryFree SocietyProminentFilm DirectorsIntelligence Agencies Author:Pankaj Mishra
“In journalism just one fact that is false prejudices the entire work. In contrast, in fiction one single fact that is true gives legitimacy to the entire work. That's the only difference, and it lies in the commitment of the writer. A novelist can do anything he wants so long as he makes people believe in it.” PeopleWantGivingBelieveLongFactsLyingCan DoDifferencesFictionCommitmentPrejudiceJournalismNovelistsJust OneContrastLegitimacy Author:Gabriel Garcia Marquez