“I don't think the relationship between novels and realities are one to one. Of course novels play different roles. It's essentially just a long narrative form. What you use that long narrative form for can be very different.” ThinkingLongDifferentPlayUseRealityFormCoursesRolesNovelNarrative Author:Margaret Atwood
“The most ancient parts of truth . . . also once were plastic. They also were called true for human reasons. They also mediated between still earlier truths and what in those days were novel observations. Purely objective truth, truth in whose establishment the function of giving human satisfaction in marrying previous parts of experience with newer parts played no role whatsoever, is nowhere to be found. The reasons why we call things true is the reason why they are true, for to be true means only to perform this marriage-function.” GivingHumansMeanStillsReasonTruthFoundRolesNovelFunctionAncientSatisfactionObjectivesBeing TrueObservationReason WhyEstablishmentPlasticMarryingHuman ReasonObjective Truth Author:William James
“The process for writing a picture book is completely different from the process of writing a chapter book or novel. For one thing, most of my picture books rhyme. Also, when I write a picture book I'm always thinking about the role the pictures will play in the telling of the story. It can take me several months to write a picture book, but it takes me several years to write a novel.” ThinkingWritingYearsBookDifferentPlayStoriesProcessRolesNovelOne ThingMonthsTake MeChaptersRhymeAlways ThinkingPicture Books Author:Sarah Weeks
“The contemporary memoir is playing an important role in at least just bringing certain relationships out into the open in American society, and also it's a place where the novel of development, the novel of consciousness, has gone.” ImportantCertainConsciousnessRolesNovelGoneDevelopmentMemoirContemporaryAmerican Society Author:Marco Roth
“Biography always has fulfiled this role. Robinson Crusoe is a biography, as is Tom Jones. You can go through the whole range of the novel, and you will find it is biography. The only difference between one example and the other is that sometimes it's a partial biography and sometimes it's a total biography. Clarissa, for example, is a partial biography of Clarissa and a partial biography of Lovelace. In other words, it doesn't follow Lovelace from when he is in the cradle, though it takes him to the grave.” SometimesWholeDifferencesRolesNovelExampleGravesRangeTomsBiographiesCradleRobinson Crusoe Author:William Golding
“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