“Orwell was dealing with communism and his disillusionment with communism in Russia and what he saw the communists do in Spain. His novel was a response to those political situations. Whereas I was interested in more things than the political atmosphere. I was considering the whole social atmosphere: the impact of TV and radio and the lack of education. I could see the coming event of schoolteachers not teaching reading anymore. The less they taught, the more you wouldn't need books.” NeedsBookWholePoliticalReadingSocialSituationNovelSawsTeachingEventsTaughtTvsImpactResponseRadioRussiaCommunismAtmosphereCommunistConsideringSpainDisillusionmentLack Of Education Author:Ray Bradbury
“Brands are useful ways of short-handing practically anything - look at the way Tom Wolfe first used brand name lists to sharpen up a character and a situation. Look at the most brand-referenced novel, Bret Easton Ellis's 'Glamorama.” WayFirstsLooksCharacterUsedNamesSituationNovelListsBrandsTomsBrand Names Author:Peter York
“The "Lucifer Effect" describes the point in time when an ordinary, normal person first crosses the boundary between good and evil to engage in an evil action. It represents a transformation of human character that is significant in its consequences. Such transformations are more likely to occur in novel settings, in "total situations," where social situational forces are sufficiently powerful to overwhelm, or set aside temporally, personal attributes of morality, compassion, or sense of justice and fair play.” FirstsHumansPersonsPlayCharacterActionEvilForceSocialJusticePowerfulCompassionSituationNovelEffectsMoralityNormalOrdinaryConsequenceFairsCrossesTransformationSignificantBoundariesSettingSettingsGood And EvilAttributesLuciferFair Play Author:Philip Zimbardo
“So long as a novelist works selfishly for the pleasure of creating character and situation corresponding to his own illusions, ideals and intuitions, he will always produce something worth while and natural. Directly he takes himself too seriously and begins for the alleged benefit of humanity an elaborate dissection of complexes, he evolves a book that is more ridiculous and tiresome than the most conventional cold cream girl novel of yesterday.” LongBookCharacterHumanityGirlNaturalPleasureSituationNovelProduceColdBenefitsCreatingIllusionIdealsComplexesIntuitionRidiculousYesterdayEvolveNovelistsConventionalCreamCorrespondingTiresomeDissectionCreating Characters Book:Willa Cather in person: interviews, speeches, and letters Source: Willa Cather in person: interviews, speeches, and letters
“My own feeling is that the only possible reason for engaging in the hard labor of writing a novel, is that one is bothered by something one needs to understand, and can come to understand only through the characters in the imagined situation.” NeedsWritingHardReasonCharacterFeelingsMy OwnSituationNovelLaborEngagingBothered Book:Writings on Writing Source: Writings on Writing
“The kind of response I hope for when I write my novels for children: to give them a chance to recognize something of their own feelings -- about themselves, their parents, their friends -- and their own situation as a kind of subject race, always at the mercy of the adults who mostly run their lives for them.” GivingWritingKindChildrenFeelingsRunningParentChanceRaceSituationNovelSubjectsAdultsMercyResponse Author:Nina Bawden
“No one reads novels anymore. And I don't see the situation improving. People prefer video games, reality TV, and films. There are so many reasons now not to read novels.” PeopleReasonRealityFilmGamesSituationNovelTvsVideoImprovingReality Tv Author:Gore Vidal
“The process of writing a novel begins with a pang, a moment of recognition, and a situation, a character, or something you read in a paper, that seems to go off, like a solar flare inside your head.” WritingMomentsCharacterSeemsProcessSituationNovelPaperRecognitionFlareSolar Flares Author:Martin Amis
“I was not exploiting any real individual's story in writing ROOM, of course I was aware that my novel, by commenting on such situations, would run the risk of falling into those traps of voyeurism, sensationalism and sentimentality.” WritingRealStoriesRunningFallCoursesIndividualRoomsSituationNovelRiskTrapsSentimentalitySensationalism Author:Emma Donoghue
“Seriously, I think what all the puzzling over parenthood I had to do to write [a novel] ROOM taught me is that children can thrive in a remarkable range of situations.” ThinkingWritingChildrenRoomsSituationNovelTaughtRangeThriveRemarkableParenthoodPuzzling Author:Emma Donoghue
“You don't want to be ungenerous toward people who give you prizes, but it is never the social or political message that interests me in a novel. I begin with an interest in a relationship, a situation, a character.” PeopleWantGivingCharacterPoliticalSocialInterestSituationNovelMessagesPrize Author:John Irving
“Life for women in ancient Greece was hard - you had to fight for every inch of ground you got. Both Thetis and Briseis are strong, passionate women and in another time and place their lives would have been very different. Part of the tragedy of their characters is how much they have to offer - and how little of that they get to realize. Thetis spends the whole novel fighting the limitations placed on her, desperately trying to eke out the best she can from a bad situation. This makes her fierce and terrifying.” TryingLittlesHas BeensDifferentHardWholeCharacterFightingStrongRealizingSituationNovelOffersTragedyAncientPassionateLimitationInchesFierceGreeceAnother TimeAncient GreeceBad SituationsPassionate Woman Author:Madeline Miller
“When I write my novels, I'm not writing them to make political points. I'm writing them because I passionately love monsters and the weird and horror stories and strange situations and surrealism, and what I want to do is communicate that. But, because I come at this with a political perspective, the world that I'm creating is embedded with many of the concerns that I have. But I never let them get in the way of the monsters.” WorldWayWantWritingStoriesPoliticalSituationNovelStrangePerspectiveHorrorCreatingConcernCommunicateMonstersEmbeddedSurrealismHorror Stories Author:China Mieville
“You know, there’s a philosopher who says, “As you live your life, it appears to be anarchy and chaos, and random events, non-related events, smashing into each other and causing this situation or that situation, and then, this happens, and it’s overwhelming, and it just looks like what in the world is going on ? And later, when you look back at it, it looks like a finely crafted novel. But at the time, it don’t.” KnowsWorldLooksHappensSituationNovelEventsChaosPhilosopherRelatedOverwhelmingAnarchyLive Your LifeSmashingRandom Events Author:Joe Walsh
“Our rate of progress is such that an individual human being, of ordinary length of life, will be called on to face novel situations which find no parallel in his past. The fixed person, for the fixed duties, who, in older societies was such a godsend, in the future will be a public danger.” HumansPersonsPastFacesIndividualHuman BeingsSituationNovelProgressDangerDutyOrdinaryRateFixedLengthParallelsLength Of Life Book:Science and the Modern World Source: Science and the Modern World
“The benefit of writing a collection - as opposed to a novel - is that I'm able to have some version of the war in each story without having to comment on its all-encompassing nature. Turn the page and here are new characters and new situations, but the war remains... Isn't that how life has been for us for over a decade?” WritingHas BeensWarCharacterStoriesAbleTurnsSituationNovelBenefitsPagesRemainsDecadesVersionsCollectionsCommentNew Situations Author:Said Sayrafiezadeh
“I think I can safely call 2012 average. Overall, it was a stronger year for nonfiction than fiction - a situation that would've surprised me back in January, when I was looking forward to big new novels from several authors I really love.” ThinkingYearsI CanBigsFictionSituationNovelStrongerAverageNonfictionLooking ForwardJanuary Author:David Edelstein