“Sometime during the 1990s, when I was teaching philosophy at UCSD, my friend, colleague, and music teacher, Carol Plantamura, discussed the possibility of teaching a course together looking at ways in which various literary works (plays, stories, novels) had been treated as operas, and how different themes emerged in the opera and in its original. One of the pairings we planned to use was Mann's great novella and Britten's opera. Unfortunately, the course was never taught, but the idea remained with me.” WayIdeasDifferentPhilosophyPlayStoriesUseTogetherCoursesNovelTeacherTeachingPossibilityTaughtMy FriendsOriginalsVariousTreatedThemeOperaColleaguesCarolsLiterary WorksMusic TeacherWork Play Author:Philip Kitcher
“Whenever people say a coincidence in a novel is implausible, I think, Do I have a story for you.” PeopleThinkingStoriesNovelCoincidence 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
“Writing is my number one passion. I've written two novels. I've written a screenplay. I also write short stories and poetry.” WritingTwoStoriesPassionNumbersNovelWrittenShort StoryScreenplays Author:Evangeline Lilly
“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
“I had a story-telling mother; she's written novels and short stories. So I feel like maybe I'm staying alive by telling tales.” FeelsStoriesMotherNovelAliveWrittenTalesStayingShort StoryStaying Alive Author:Ayshay
“I had no idea Savage Season was the beginning of a series. I wrote the second one about three years later. The character of Hap wouldn't stop talking to me, and then there was a third, and over the years nine novels and a collection of stories and some uncollected stories.” YearsIdeasCharacterStoriesThreeTalkingNovelThirdsSeasonsSeriesNineNo IdeaCollectionsThree YearsSavages Author:Joe R. Lansdale
“I don't generally derive my stories from novels. I try to turn into film things I have felt or experienced.” TryingStoriesFilmTurnsFeltNovel Author:Abbas Kiarostami
“In the original novel [ Anthem], the story unfolds in the mind of a single character. Maybe that's why Ayn Rand called the work a poem.” MindCharacterStoriesNovelOriginalsAnthem Author:Jeff Britting
“I wouldn't have thought that the techniques of story-telling, which is what the novel is after all, can vary much because there are two things involved.There's a story and there's a listener, whose attention you have to keep. Now the only way in which you can keep a reader's attention to a story is in his wanting to know what is going to happen next. This puts a fairly close restriction on the method you must use.” KnowsWayTwoStoriesUseHappensNextAttentionNovelReaderInvolvedMethodTechniqueTwo ThingsListenersRestrictionVary Author:William Golding
“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
“Experimental novels are sometimes terribly clever and very seldom read. But the story that appeals to the child sitting on your knee is the one that satisfies the curiosity we all have about what happened then, and then, and then. This is the final restriction put on the technique of telling a story. A basic thing called story is built into the human condition. It's what we are; it's something to which we react.” HumansChildrenSometimesStoriesNovelHappenedConditionsSittingBuiltFinalsCuriosityTechniqueCleverAppealsKneesHuman ConditionRestrictionBasic Things Author:William Golding
“Maybe, just maybe, there should be a graphic novel dealing with the contribution of the women of the civil rights movement, to tell their story. The pain, the hurt. They raised their children. Some were working as maids, but when they left those kitchens, those homes, they made it to the mass meetings. And they put their bodies on the lines, also.” ShouldChildrenMadeStoriesHomeBodyPainLeftHurtLinesNovelRightsMovementMassMeetingsRaisedCivil RightsMade ItKitchenContributionGraphicCivil Rights MovementMaidsGraphic Novels Author:John Lewis
“There are things the story must have or else look incomplete. And these will almost automatically present themselves. When they don't, you are in trouble and then the novel stops.” LooksStoriesNovelTroubleIncomplete Author:Chinua Achebe
“It is important for me to discover the ideal title, for without this title the story or novel isn't quite in focus.” ImportantStoriesNovelFocusIdealsTitles Author:Joyce Carol Oates
“Only when you have completed a novel, or a story, can you return to the beginning and revise or rewrite.” StoriesNovelReturn Author:Joyce Carol Oates
“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
“You work for so long on a graphic novel that it's easy to question your ideas or to burn out on drawing. But you plug away at it and trust in the story you want to tell. It's a marathon, but the finished product is really satisfying.” WantLongIdeasStoriesEasyNovelProductsFinishedDrawingSatisfyingMarathonGraphicPlugsBurn OutGraphic Novels Author:Vera Brosgol
“I couldn't sit down and write a novel or a short story - even now - because of my dyslexia. But I learned narration through movies.” WritingStoriesNovelDown AndShort StoryNarrationDyslexia Author:Robert Benton
“I've heard some readers saying they wished the story was longer, and I completely understand that desire - we all like to sink into a nice, long novel.” LongStoriesDesireNovelNiceHeardReader Author:Theodora Goss
“I'm writinng my first full-length novel, which is based on a novella I wrote called "The Mad Scientist's Daughter." I'm having a wonderful time with it, but of course it's presenting challenges as well. Stories always do, no matter what they are.” FirstsWellsMatterStoriesCoursesChallengesNovelWonderfulDaughterScientistNo Matter WhatMadLengthPresentingWonderful TimesMad Scientist Author:Theodora Goss
“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
“I also felt The Kite Runner was a story that would lend itself well to a visual retelling in a graphic novel.” WellsStoriesFeltNovelVisualsRunnersGraphicKitesRetellingGraphic Novels Author:Khaled Hosseini
“Though The Kite Runner was my first completed novel, I had been writing on and off for most of my life, primarily short stories, and primarily for myself.” WritingFirstsStoriesNovelShort StoryRunnersAnd OffKites Author:Khaled Hosseini
“In March of 2001, I revisited the short story, and found that thought it did not work well as a short story, it might work much better as a longer one. The novel [The Kite Runner] came about as an expansion of that original, unpublished short story.” WellsStoriesMightFoundNovelOriginalsMarchShort StoryExpansionRunnersKites Author:Khaled Hosseini
“The novel [The Kite Runner] came about as an expansion of that original, unpublished short story.” StoriesNovelOriginalsShort StoryExpansionRunnersKites Author:Khaled Hosseini
“The story line of my novel [The Kite Runner] is largely fictional. The characters were invented and the plot imagined.” CharacterStoriesLinesNovelPlotRunnersKites Author:Khaled Hosseini
“Even my novels offer passages in which the major character is imagined as a writer. In Joss and Gold, Li An is a business writer who edits her company's weekly public relations magazine. And in Sister Swing, Suyin writes human interest stories for a free, local community paper, The Asian Time.” WritingHumansCharacterStoriesInterestCommunityCompanyNovelOffersPaperMajorsGoldRelationLocalsMagazinesPassagesSwingsAsianEditsPublic RelationsLocal Community Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“Even within single sentences, there are sudden changes of register. And when the travellers go to Venice, they see a play by Voltaire! This is a novel [Candid] which has narratives within narratives, such as when Cunégonde recounts her story.” PlayStoriesNovelSentencesNarrativeTravellerVeniceRegisterCandidSingle SentenceSudden Change Author:Mark Ravenhill
“The gift of literature is that, in some lucky cases, reading a novel or a story makes the reader more curious, more open-minded.” StoriesReadingLiteratureCasesNovelReaderLuckyCuriousOpen Minded Author:Amos Oz