“Novels do not force their fair readers to sin, they only instruct them how to sin; the consequences of which are fully detailed, and not in a way calculated to seduce any but weak but weak minds; few of their heroines are happily disposed of.” WayMindForceSinNovelReaderConsequenceFairsWeakHeroinesSeducingWeak Minds Author:Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
“When I published my first novel, Slammed, I included lyrics at the beginning of each chapter from one of my favorite bands, The Avett Brothers. The overwhelmingly positive response from readers to those lyrics really surprised me.” FirstsNovelBrotherReaderBandResponseMy FavoriteChaptersFavorite BandsPositive Response Author:Colleen Hoover
“I am of the generation of writers who can get instant feedback from readers within hours of publication. The fan forum is extraordinary - readers from all over the world coming together to discuss, argue and debate scenes and characters from a novel. They add a layer to the story that I cannot write and yes, I will participate in that conversation and answer questions. After all, they are the people I'm writing for and their enthusiasm and questions really pushes me to raise the bar.” PeopleWorldWritingCharacterStoriesTogetherHoursAnswersNovelGenerationsFansReaderSceneConversationRaisesAddExtraordinaryArguingDebateBarsEnthusiasmInstantLayersFeedbackPublicationForumsComing TogetherRaising The Bar Author:Michael Scott
“I define a thriller as a big-stakes, multiple-viewpoint novel involving suspense, action, and mystery, in which the reader doesn't know everything but usually knows more than any single character.” KnowsCharacterBigsActionNovelMysteryReaderSuspenseStakesMultipleInvolvingThrillersViewpoints Author:F. Paul Wilson
“A reader, encountering a sentence about a barking dog, would have to dwell on why that choice was made at that moment. Everything in a novel is explicitly chosen, whereas some of what a film captures feels incidental, according to the vagaries of photography and sound recording.” FeelsMadeMomentsFilmChoicesSoundNovelDogReaderPhotographySentencesChosenThat MomentCaptureBarking Dogs Author:Jonathan Lethem
“If my setting is new to a reader, or the concerns of the novel are new, I hope they will learn something about the world. I would like to say that they can trust that what they do learn in the novel will be accurate, because I pay a lot of attention to facts. I do a lot of research to make sure that I'm not giving them, you know, blue moons of Jupiter. It's not science fiction.” IfsKnowsWorldGivingFactsPayAttentionFictionNovelReaderMoonResearchConcernBlueScience FictionSettingSettingsAccurateJupiterBlue Moon Author:Barbara Kingsolver
“I hope readers will do what I do when I read a novel I like: talk in ways that will illuminate their own lives.” WayNovelReader Book:Every Last One: A Novel Source: Every Last One: A Novel
“My writerly aspirations are pretty simple: to provide as many readers as possible with the same sort of wonderful immersion that I myself get from fantasy novels - and to make enough money to help feed my kids while doing so.” EnoughHelpingKidsSimpleFantasyNovelWonderfulReaderAspirationImmersionFantasy Novels Author:Saladin Ahmed
“The inspiration for my novels comes from the depths of a creative well, based on asking myself questions over and over. I try to write something different each time I sit down to write; I try to surprise the readers.” WritingTryingWellsDifferentInspirationNovelCreativeReaderAskingSurpriseDepth Author:Nicholas Sparks
“I think that setting a novel in a small town taps into a sense of nostalgia among readers. People tend to believe life is different in small towns, and frankly, it is different.” PeopleThinkingBelieveDifferentLife IsNovelReaderTownsNostalgiaSettingSettingsSmall Town Author:Nicholas Sparks
“As an author, one of the most important things I think you can do once you've written a novel is step back. When the book is out, it belongs to the readers and you can't stand there breathing over their shoulders.” ThinkingImportantBookCan DoStepsNovelWrittenReaderImportant ThingsShouldersBreathingBack When Author:Madeline Miller
“I really believe that readers are smart and sophisticated enough to realize that the author is not the narrator of his novels.” BelieveEnoughRealizingNovelReaderSmartSophisticatedNarrators Author:Bret Easton Ellis
“A novel, for me, relies on my imagination to inspire your (the reader's) imagination. It is not all there for you. My novels or my stories come to me visually. I use words to translate the novel I see inside my head into words that I hope will create a movie inside your head.” StoriesUseImaginationNovelInspireReaderRelyTranslateMy Imagination Author:Jay Neugeboren
“I am not a psychological novelist, and I try very hard not to allow the reader to see the plight or circumstances of the characters as individual psychological plights. That's my preference; still, a lot of people do read my novels as psychological studies, and they're right to read them that way too, if that's what they mean to them.” PeopleIfsWayTryingMeanStillsHardCharacterIndividualNovelStudyReaderCircumstancesPsychologicalNovelistsPreferencePlight Author:Alix Kates Shulman
“I got a rejection letter from an editor at HarperCollins, who included a report from his professional reader. This report shredded my first-born novel, laughed at my phrasing, twirled my lacy pretensions around and gobbed into the seething mosh pit of my stolen clichés. As I read the report, the world became very quiet and stopped rotating. What poisoned me was the fact that the report's criticisms were all absolutely true. The sound of my landlady digging in the garden got the world moving again. I slipped the letter into the trash... knowing I'd remember every word.” WorldWritingFirstsFactsRememberMovingSoundBornNovelKnowingReaderQuietGardenCriticismLettersRejectionReportsEditorsLaughedStolenTrashPitsDiggingPretensionSeethingRotatingRejection Letters Author:David Mitchell
“The term "bend sinister" means a heraldic bar or band drawn from the left side (and popularly, but incorrectly, supposed to denote bastardy). This choice of title was an attempt to suggest an outline broken by refraction, a distortion in the mirror of being, a wrong turn taken by life, a sinistral and sinister world. The title's drawback is that a solemn reader looking for "general ideas" or "human interest" (which is much the same thing) in a novel may be led to look for them in this one.” WorldHumansLooksMayMeanIdeasTurnsChoicesLeftSidesTermInterestNovelTakenBrokenReaderBandMirrorsBarsTitlesSolemnOutlinesDistortionSinisterDrawbacksWrong Turn Author:Vladimir Nabokov
“In a novella, a whole lot of crap can happen, and you can build momentum and suspense and leave room for a surprise or three. Stories are cut down to the most essential elements, and novels (this might be an unfair generalization on my part) are big fat clumsy efforts where the reader can snooze for a couple chapters and miss nothing of consequence. Hence my love for the middle way.” WayWholeStoriesBigsMightHappensThreeRoomsEffortNovelCuttingMiddleMissingReaderCoupleEssentialsElementsConsequenceSurpriseFatsSuspenseChaptersUnfairCrapMomentumClumsyGeneralizationMiddle Way Author:Robert Reed
“The job of the novel is to be true to the confusion, but not so confusing that you turn the reader off.” JobsTurnsNovelReaderConfusionBeing TrueConfusing Author:Nicholson Baker
“In a novel, language is your principal tool, you try to build pictures in the mind of the reader. When you write a screenplay, the language is just a transition, the final goal is a picture on the screen, it's the only thing the audience sees.” WritingTryingMindLanguageGoalNovelAudienceReaderToolsFinalsScreensTransitionPrincipalScreenplays Author:Philippe Claudel
“You can't have a novel without real, believable people, and once you get into either too theoretical a novel or too philosophical a novel, you get into the dangers that the French novel has discovered in the past 50 or 60 years. And you get into a sort of aridity. No, you have to have real, identifiable people to whom the reader reacts in a way as if they were real people.” PeopleIfsWayYearsRealPastNovelDangerReaderPhilosophicalTheoreticalBelievable Author:Julian Barnes
“One of the great things about writing a series is that with each book, the novel is meant to stand alone on its own legs, but also to bring along those loyal readers who become attached to the characters over the years.” WritingYearsBookCharacterNovelReaderSeriesLegsGreat ThingsLoyalStand Alone Author:Linda Fairstein
“In a novel, the relationship between writer and reader is such a pure one.” NovelReaderPure Author:Howard Gordon
“Ayn Rand held that art is a 're-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgements.' By its nature, therefore, a novel (like a statue or a symphony) does not require or tolerate an explanatory preface; it is a self-contained universe, aloof from commentary, beckoning the reader to enter, perceive, respond.” DoeArtSelfRealityArtistValuesUniverseNovelCreationReaderArt IsPerceiveJudgementTolerateMetaphysicalStatuesSymphonyCommentaryAloofSelf ContainedBeckoning Author:Leonard Peikoff
“TV and film are very different media with different requirements. In a TV show, you have actors and fellow writers and directors, who are interpreting your work. With a novel, you only have ink, words and your reader.” DifferentShowsFilmActorsNovelMediaTvsReaderDirectorsFellowsTv ShowsRequirementsInkInterpreting Author:Howard Gordon
“I think not in two or three dimensional terms but in five dimensional terms when I consider a novel. There's height, width, and depth, there's the time factor, and then there's the factor which I call the cerebral factor of the reader, the way the reader adjusts to all the other dimensions, which is the fifth dimension.” ThinkingWayTwoThreeTermNovelFiveReaderDepthFactorsHeightDimensionsFifthCerebralWidth Author:Richard Grossman
“Every novel deals with social problems. It can't help it because the protagonist must come in conflict with his group. So the author has to offer an analysis of how the group and the protagonist fit. Otherwise, the reader will just say, "This makes no sense," and will put it away.” HelpingProblemSocialDealsNovelGroupsReaderFitOffersConflictAnalysisProtagonistsSocial Problems Author:Jane Smiley
“The main thing about the novel that is totally fascinating: It's not possessed by the writer; it's possessed by the reader.” NovelReaderFascinatingPossessed Author:Jane Smiley
“A form wherein we can enjoy simultaneously what is best in both the novel and the short story form. My plan was to create a book that affords readers some of the novel's long-form pleasures but that also contains the short story's ability to capture what is so difficult about being human - the brevity of our moments, their cruel irrevocability.” HumansLongBookMomentsStoriesFormEnjoyDifficultAbilityPleasureNovelPlansReaderCaptureShort StoryBeing HumanBrevity Author:Junot Diaz
“I struggle with confidence, every time. I’m never completely sure I can write another book. Maybe my scope is too grand, my questions too hard, surely readers won’t want to follow me here. A novel is like a cathedral, it knocks you down to size when you enter into it.” WantWritingI CanBookHardNovelStruggleReaderSizeScopeFollow MeCathedrals Author:Barbara Kingsolver
“A novel can educate to some extent, but first a novel has to entertain. That's the contract with the reader: you give me ten hours and I'll give you a reason to turn every page. I have a commitment to accessibility. I believe in plot. I want an English professor to understand the symbolism while at the same time I want the people I grew up with - who may not often read anything but the Sears catalog - to read my books.” PeopleWantGivingFirstsBelieveMayBookReasonTurnsI BelieveHoursNovelGrewReaderTenGrew UpPagesCommitmentGive MeI Believe InPlotContractsProfessorsEducateSymbolismAccessibilitySears Author:Barbara Kingsolver
“I sometimes feel that my goal as a novelist would be to write a novel in which the language was so transparent that the reader would forget that language was the medium of understanding. Of course that's not possible, but it's some sort of idealized goal.” FeelsWritingSometimesWould BeCoursesLanguageUnderstandingGoalForgetNovelReaderMediumsNovelistsTransparent Author:Paul Auster
“[Mark] Twain is pointing at you. You, the reader of the book one hundred and thirty years ago and today. That is what has made it a great American novel and the most widely read book in American Literature around the world today.” WorldYearsMadeBookTodayLiteratureNovelReaderHundredYears AgoMarkMade ItAround The WorldThirtyPointingWorld TodayThirty YearsGreat AmericanAmerican Literature Author:Hal Holbrook
“Like when you pick up a book and you don't realize what type of text it is - it could be an essay, a novel, a biography - and at one point you realize you don't know where, as a reader, you want to be. Where are you going with this text? What is the goal? How are you supposed to interpret what you're reading? And people's responses vary - some dislike it, and are put off by the confusion, the lack of comprehension.” PeopleKnowsWantBookReadingGoalRealizingNovelTypeReaderPicksResponseConfusionDislikeBiographiesEssaysVaryComprehension Author:Sergio Chejfec
“"Unputdownable" is, I suppose, something we all dream of, maybe without knowing it. I realized, some time ago, that a novel can hold a lot, and it made sense that this one was not of the sleek and economical variety, but instead the "full" type. Novel as piñata. And the reader does the whacking. I had a central idea, which is to look at what happens to talent over time.” LooksDoeMadeIdeasDreamHappensNovelKnowingTalentTypeReaderI RealizedVariety Author:Meg Wolitzer
“I wasn't trying to write a corrective novel - that would just end up tasting like medicine, and I tried to stay away from polemics as best I could. I think that, if anything, Fobbit is my way of showing readers there's another side to war - the backstage of combat, if you will. If you play a word association game with Americans and say "war," what's the first thing that comes to mind? Soldiers running across a battlefield through a hail of bullets, right? Rambo, smoke, explosions. In Fobbit, I hope readers will see something a little different” IfsThinkingWayWritingTryingMindFirstsLittlesDifferentWarEndsPlayRunningGamesSidesNovelReaderMedicineSoldierSmokeMy WayCombatAssociationBulletsExplosionsBattlefieldsHailTastingPolemicsRambo Author:Dave Abrams
“It's disingenous for me to say that I wasn't trying to write a moral novel. By its very nature as a novel about the Iraq War, Fobbit steps into the political conversation. There's no way to avoid that. I can appreciate that readers are probably going to line up on one side of the novel or the other. I hope they go to those polar extremes, actually.” WayWritingTryingI CanWarPoliticalSidesLinesMoralStepsNovelReaderConversationAppreciateIraqExtremesIraq War Author:Dave Abrams
“If Fobbit leaves a reader feeling stranded in some bland in-between territory, then I haven't done my job. But having said all that, I didn't consciously write the book with a particular moral intent. I took what I experienced and processed it through the sausage factory of fiction. It's up to readers to interpret what's on the page - as is the case with any novel.” IfsWritingSaidBookDoneFeelingsJobsFictionMoralCasesNovelHavensParticularReaderPagesTerritoryFactoriesSausageBlandStranded Author:Dave Abrams
“The novelistic attribute of my work is very much like the Russian way of creating novels. Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky - their work has so many gaps. But for the reader, you cannot erase those gaps because they are important. They contextualize the whole struggle. My cinema is like that.” WayImportantWholeNovelStruggleReaderCreatingCinemaGapsAttributesEraseDostoyevsky Author:Lav Diaz
“If you had told me twenty years ago that I would write a novel set in Russia, much less two, I simply wouldn't have believed you. I had no familiarity with Russia or its history, but part of what drives me as a reader, and more and more as a writer, is curiosity, the desire to explore unfamiliar terrain and inhabit alternate lives.” IfsWritingYearsTwoDesireNovelReaderYears AgoTwentiesCuriosityRussiaFamiliarityUnfamiliarTerrain Author:Debra Dean
“I am not sure how a novel changes the world. I think it alters a reader's perspective by asking him or her to see the world through another consciousness. That can perhaps cause people to see their own lives differently. Or just give a single day, a single moment, a slightly different sheen.” PeopleThinkingWorldGivingDifferentMomentsCausesConsciousnessNovelPerspectiveReaderAskingNot SureChanging The WorldSingle Mom Author:Edan Lepucki
“I don't revise a lot when writing short stories. As far as the novel, I definitely thought more about plot. Honestly, I'm still pretty confused about what "plot" means. I've been reading some of my Goodreads reviews and one reader noted that the The Last Days of California "reads like a short story stretched to the breaking point, padded and brought into novel range..." I don't know what people want, really.” PeopleKnowsWantWritingMeanStillsStoriesLastsReadingNovelReaderHonestlyRangeCaliforniaConfusedPlotReviewsShort StoryLast DayGoodreadsPoint BreakWriting ShortWriting Short Stories Author:Mary J. Miller
“Now, as a reader, you shouldn't feel the decisions the writer makes about this DNA, or it would be boring beyond belief. But, as a writer, you're struggling to make these decisions. What should the title be? What's the first line? The point of view? And the struggle with the decisions is because you're trying to figure out WHAT IS THE NOVEL, WHAT IS THE NOVEL?” FeelsShouldTryingFirstsWould BeBeliefLinesDecisionViewsNovelStruggleFiguresReaderBoringPoint Of ViewTitlesDna Author:Mary Kay Zuravleff
“I don't think about the reader in any conscious way that impacts the writing, as far as, Hey, most readers would like this! But at the same time, if it were presented to me: "John, you're going to write a novel. It's going to take you a few years. When you're done with it, there's a law that no one's allowed to read it." I don't think I would write it. I want someone to read it!” IfsThinkingWayWantWritingYearsDoneLawNovelReaderConsciousImpactHey Author:John Brandon
“I want the flashbacks to feel that once you're there they have their own unity, their own kind of atmospheric sensibility; I want the reader to be transported. The novel is a big, complicated, unknowable thing before it's written.” WantFeelsKindBigsNovelWrittenReaderUnityComplicatedSensibilityFlashback Author:Chang-Rae Lee
“With a novel, you have to have a story. It's much more important to have it matter to the reader what happens to people, and it has to make sense and end in a way that is satisfying. So I spend a lot more time thinking about that. Then the writing itself usually is easier for me, because I know where it's going.” PeopleThinkingKnowsWayWritingImportantEndsMatterStoriesHappensNovelReaderEasierMake SenseMore TimeSatisfying Author:Dave Barry
“You sing about the things you're influenced by. So we've been big into sci-fi since we were kids, things like Star Trek etc. Then came movies like Terminator and Dune. Burton is also a really big reader and loves sci-fi novels which helps him write. It's also really cool he does that because it's through the perspective of how we see things going or possibly going.” WritingDoeHelpingBigsKidsStarsNovelPerspectiveReaderAnd LoveEtcSci FiReally Cool Author:Dino Cazares
“I'm my own "ideal reader" in the sense that I write novels that I would want to read.” WantWritingMy OwnNovelReaderIdeals Author:Steve Erickson
“specialize in small cast/single reader long fiction so I only compete against other podcasts of novels in that form.” LongFormFictionNovelReaderCasts Author:Nathan Lowell
“I'm not entirely sure what a historical novel absolutely has to be, but you don't want a reader who loves a very traditional historical novel to go in with the expectation that this is going to deliver the same kind of reading experience. I think what's contemporary about my book has something to do with how condensed things are.” ThinkingWantKindBookReadingNovelReaderExpectationsHistoricalContemporaryTraditionalHistorical NovelsReading Experience Author:Danielle Dutton
“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