“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
“I knew it was a risk but what I was after was a novel that is about the feeling that comes with a coincidence in real life - that you feel as if something divine has intervened and has arrived with a message.” IfsFeelsRealFeelingsNovelRiskDivineMessagesReal LifeCoincidence Author:Alexander Chee
“Before I begin a novel I have a strong sense of at least one central character and how the story begins, and a more vague sense of where things may wind up, but at some point, if the novel is any good at all, the story and characters take on lives of their own and take over the book, and the writer has to be open to that.” IfsMayBookCharacterStoriesStrongNovelWindVague Author:Steve Erickson
“I try not to write more than two or three, I try to just write one if possible, I write till the end at least a draft of a play or a novel; but sometimes, I'll take a break for a couple weeks for a project that is paying me money like a television project which I try to stay away from just to stay financially ahead of the game.” IfsWritingTryingTwoEndsSometimesPlayThreeGamesBreakNovelWeekTelevisionCoupleProjectsTill The EndAhead Of The Game Author:Adam Rapp
“I never know exactly where I'm going with a story, whether it's a short story or a novel. If I did I'd soon grow bored of it. The fun, for me, is in the finding out and the making sense of it.” IfsKnowsStoriesFunGrowsNovelFindingsMake SenseBoredShort Story Author:Nicholas Royle
“It's not as if I knew answers which I am going to set down in the form of a novel or a memoir or a sermon. It's, rather, I'm going to search myself for what I might have to say in this area.” IfsMightFormAnswersNovelAreasMemoirSermons Author:Frederick Buechner
“My boyfriend suggested I write two pages a day. He wouldn't take me out if I hadn't done my two pages. That's how I wrote my second novel.” IfsWritingTwoDoneNovelPagesTake MeMy Boyfriend Author:S. E. Hinton
“The reviews on it, and the new novel, Honky Tonk Samurai have been awesome, though I'm of the school if you believe the good ones you got to believe the bad ones, it's been mostly good ones. The previewers seem to be very happy and excited about it. I know I am. There are plans to continue if it does well.” IfsKnowsBelieveWellsDoeHas BeensSeemsSchoolNovelPlansExcitedReviewsVery HappyIf You BelieveSamuraiTonks Author:Joe R. Lansdale
“I was once doing a question and answer period with the novelist Jane Smiley in a bookstore and someone asked us what our processes were and Jane said hers and then I said mine and Jane said, "Well, if I had a student like that I'd force him never to write like that again because you could never write a novel in the way that you write poetry."” IfsWayWritingWellsSaidForceProcessAnswersNovelStudentsMinesPeriodsNovelistsJaneBookstoresQuestions And AnswersSmiley Author:Edward Hirsch
“I can't stand it when people say, "If you're writing a novel, you should read this and that." Because it's like giving someone another person's prescription. How do you know that's what they need?” PeopleIfsKnowsNeedsGivingShouldWritingPersonsI CanNovelDo You KnowPrescriptions Author:Sandra Cisneros
“If I wanted to make money I would have written another novel.” IfsWantedNovelWrittenMaking Money Author:James Ellroy
“Writing a good query letter has very little to do with writing a good novel. But if you can't write the one, it makes it really hard to get the other published.” IfsWritingLittlesHardNovelLettersQueries Author:Patrick Rothfuss
“If ideas are what feed serious literature and arresting language, who today is writing a novel of ideas (which can often mean comedy)? I think of Joshua Cohen. Who else?” IfsThinkingWritingMeanIdeasTodayLiteratureLanguageNovelComedySeriousArresting Author:Cynthia Ozick
“The R.I.P.D. picture is like a graphic novel, I guess. I don't know if it's like a typical kind of comic book. But there is great source material for those kinds of films.” IfsKnowsKindBookFilmNovelMaterialsSourceComicComic BookTypicalGraphicGraphic Novels Author:Ryan Reynolds
“If someone said, I want to translate your novel into Igbo, I would say, Go ahead. But when I write in the Igbo language, I write my own dialect. I write some poetry in that dialect.” IfsWantWritingSaidLanguageMy OwnNovelTranslateDialect Author:Chinua Achebe
“If Shakespeare's great plays are variants of stories, even novels, you can see how each character is telling his story from his perspective; each is vying with the others for dominance, but in the end, in tragedy, most of these voices will die, to be replaced by the yet more vigorous voice of a younger generation.” IfsEndsPlayCharacterStoriesDiesVoiceNovelGenerationsPerspectiveTragedyReplacedVigorousDominanceYounger Generation Author:Joyce Carol Oates
“So much as I enjoy big novels of epic sweep, I often find, say, if they follow several generations, by the third generation, I'm not caring about the people anymore.” PeopleIfsBigsEnjoyNovelGenerationsThirdsCaringEpicNot Caring Author:Emma Donoghue
“I thought, "If I could bring these characters [Wonder Boys] to life and lead the audience to react the same way I did, this could be a really special picture." Then I read Michael's [Chabon] novel and got even more enthusiastic about it.” IfsWayCharacterWonderBoysNovelAudienceSpecialIf I CouldEnthusiastic Author:Curtis Hanson
“I don't know if you hear this often but I would say The Razor's Edge (loosely based on a great W. Somerset Maugham novel). This was Bill Murray's first dramatic role so everyone thought he stunk in this deep character but I thought he and the movie were great. The movie takes place over decades so you see Murray's character go from goofy playboy all the way to wiser, older person. It's basically a movie version of the journey I described.” IfsKnowsWayFirstsPersonsCharacterRolesNovelJourneyBillsEdgesDecadesVersionsDramaticWiserRazorsPlayboyGoofy Author:Lewis Schiff
“If a novel is written in a certain language with certain characters from a particular community and the story is very good or illuminating, then that work is translated into the language of another community - then they begin to see through their language that the problems described there are the same as the problems they are having. They can identify with characters from another language group.” IfsCharacterStoriesProblemCertainLanguageCommunityNovelWrittenGroupsParticularVery GoodIlluminating Author:Ngugi wa Thiong'o
“If you connect emotionally with the plight of those characters, ou feel what they feel and you walk away with a sense of understanding and empathy, and hopefully, something has been illuminated for you. And I tink that's what happendd for a lot of readers with my novels.” IfsFeelsHas BeensCharacterUnderstandingWalksNovelReaderEmpathyHopefullyPlight Author:Khaled Hosseini
“If I could write a novel while I'm walking, I probably would.” IfsWritingNovelWalkingIf I Could Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“Wouldn't that be wonderful if I could do that? And that way, I could walk with the muse, rather than walk without her. The novel would write itself.” IfsWayWritingWalksNovelWonderfulIf I CouldMuse Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“In writing a novel, the writer must be able to identify emotionally and intellectually with two or three or four contradicting perspectives and give each of them very a convincing voice. It's like playing tennis with yourself and you have to be on both sides of the yard. You have to be on both sides, or all sides if there are more than two sides.” IfsGivingWritingTwoAbleThreeSidesVoiceNovelFourPerspectiveTennisYardsBoth SidesConvincingTwo SidesContradicting Author:Amos Oz
“There are as many different ways to write a novel as there are varieties of human consciousness, so I am totally delighted if people want to use words that come from genres to describe how this book functions because those words are accurate.” PeopleIfsWayWantWritingHumansBookDifferentUseConsciousnessNovelFunctionVarietyGenreDifferent WaysAccurateDelightedHuman Consciousness Author:Emily Barton
“One of the things that's exciting for me about this novel is that, to me, Brookland and The Testament of Yves Gundron were both, in certain regards, crypto-steampunk. They're both books that are interested in an alternate technological past that in fact didn't historically come to pass. If you were to ask me what my novels were about, I would say, well, these are novels about technology and how we relate to technology and what technology means.” IfsWellsMeanBookFactsPastCertainAsksTechnologyNovelExcitingRegardRelateAsk MeTechnologicalTestamentSteampunk Author:Emily Barton
“I feel that there is an alternate ending that leaps off too far into fantasy and there is an alternate ending that leaps off too far into pessimism, but that, in fact, the novel as it has developed should, if it's functioning correctly, have equipped you as the reader to make your own decision about where you want to go with that, about where you're going to fall on that continuum. So, the novel is taking you directly up to the point that you have to choose, and it's letting you do that.” IfsWantFeelsShouldFactsFallDecisionFantasyNovelReaderLeapPessimismContinuum Author:Emily Barton