“I never think about genre when I work. I've written fantasy, science fiction, supernatural fiction, and am now working on a suspense novel. Genres are mostly useful as a marketing tool, and to help booksellers known where to shelve a book.” ThinkingBookHelpingFictionKnownFantasyNovelWrittenToolsScience FictionMarketingSuspenseGenreBooksellersSuspense Novels Author:Elizabeth Hand
“I'm reading Barnaby Rudge, one of the less well-known Dickens novels. I've been a life-long lover of Charles Dickens ever since I think A Tale of Two Cities was the first Dickens novel I read.” ThinkingFirstsWellsLongTwoReadingCitiesKnownNovelLoversTalesWell KnownLong LifeDickensTale Of Two Cities Author:George Brandis
“I've just finished a series of Olivia Manning novels. She's best known for two trilogies: Balkan Trilogy and Levant Trilogy. The six novels are continuous and contain the same set of characters. They are based on Manning's experiences in Eastern Europe and Egypt during the Second World War. Each novel is a wonderful picture of the peculiar British expatriate culture and what was happening during the war. She's one of those brilliant women who write very well about domestic relationships. All the books are slim, and it's easy to gallop through them.” WorldWritingWellsTwoBookWarCharacterCultureEasyKnownNovelWonderfulSixHappeningsEuropeSeriesBritishFinishedBrilliantWar Of The WorldsPeculiarEgyptEasternSecond World WarSlimEastern EuropeTrilogiesBalkansOliviaExpatriates Author:Sarah Waters
“There is a world of science necessary in choosing books. I have known some people in great sorrow fly to a novel, or the last light book in fashion. One might as well take a rose-draught for the plague! Light reading does not do when the heart is really heavy. I am told that Goethe, when he lost his son, took to study a science that was new to him. Ah! Goethe was a physician who knew what he was about.” PeopleWorldWellsHeartDoeBookLightMightLastsReadingLostKnownNovelStudyFashionSonSorrowRoseHeavyPhysiciansPlagueDraught Author:Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
“I'd been assured, at age 21 or so, by a well-known editor who saw the first part of The Secret History in what was basically its final form, that it would never be published because "no woman has ever written a successful novel from a male point of view."” FirstsWellsAgeFormViewsSecretKnownNovelSuccessfulSawsWrittenMalesFinalsPoint Of ViewEditorsWell KnownAssured Author:Donna Tartt
“My writing derived from the conviction I conceived during my college years: one should lead one's life as if one were the protagonist of an epic novel, with the outcome predetermined and chapter after chapter of edifying, traumatic, and exhilarating events to be suffered through. Since the end is known in advance, one must try to experience as much as possible in the brief time allotted. Writing is a way of ensuring that you pay enough attention along the way to understand what you see.” IfsWayShouldWritingTryingYearsEndsEnoughPayAttentionKnownNovelEventsCollegeConvictionOutcomesChaptersEpicExhilaratingProtagonistsPredeterminedYear OneCollege Years Author:Jeffrey Tayler
“I have more self-doubt than any writer I've ever known.... The positive aspect of self-doubt - if you can channel it into useful activity instead of being paralyzed by it - is that by the time you reach the end of a novel, you know precisely why you made every decision in the narrative, the multiple purposes of every metaphor and image.” IfsKnowsMadeEndsSelfPurposeDecisionKnownNovelDoubtActivityAspectMetaphorNarrativeMultipleParalyzedSelf-doubt Author:Dean Koontz
“And I don't want to begin something, I don't want to write that first sentence until all the important connections in the novel are known to me. As if the story has already taken place, and it's my responsibility to put it in the right order to tell it to you.” IfsWantWritingFirstsImportantStoriesOrderResponsibilityKnownNovelTakenConnectionsSentencesAlready Taken Author:John Irving
“The Australian Gerald Murnane, a genius on the level of Beckett, is known in Australia and Sweden but almost nowhere else. And I loved Reality Hunger, David Shields' recent novel take on the art of the novel.” ArtRealityLevelsKnownNovelGeniusHungerAustraliaShieldsAustralianSwedenBeckett Author:Teju Cole
“When you take a child who's hollering like hell, sit him on your knee, and say "once upon a time", you stop him hollering. As long as you go on telling him a story, he will listen. Novelists who neglect this fundamental effect do so at their peril. They become what is known as the experimental novelist, and an experimental novel is not really a novel at all.” ChildrenLongStoriesKnownNovelHellEffectsGoes OnFundamentalsKneesNovelistsNeglectPerilOnce Upon A Time Author:William Golding
“I don't think a novel's main donation, main gift, is the document. The document is there, but a novel goes beyond documentation. It goes into opening a new vista, opening a new perspective, showing familiar things in an unfamiliar way, and making the reader reconsider the documentary facts which he or she may have known before.” ThinkingWayMayFactsKnownNovelPerspectiveReaderFamiliarOpeningDocumentsDocumentariesUnfamiliarDonationVistasDocumentationNew PerspectiveFamiliar Things Author:Amos Oz