“People really want to believe that there is no fiction. I think they find it much easier to imagine that novelists are writing memoirs, writing about their lives, because it's difficult to conceive that there's a great imaginary life in which you can participate.” PeopleThinkingWantWritingBelieveDifficultFictionImagineEasierMemoirNovelistsImaginaryImagine ThatImaginary Life Author:Mark Leyner
“The pace of Swedish crime fiction is slower - Stieg Larsson's the exception. And I think we use the environment more.” ThinkingUseFictionEnvironmentCrimeExceptionPaceCrime FictionSwedish Author:Camilla Lackberg
“I think every fiction writer, to a certain extent, is a schizophrenic and able to have two or three or five voices in his or her body. We seek, through our profession, to get those voices onto paper.” ThinkingTwoBodyAbleCertainThreeVoiceFictionFivePaperProfessionFiction WritersSchizophrenic Author:Ridley Pearson
“It's important, I think, for a writer of fiction to maintain an awareness of the pace and shape of the book as he's writing it. That is, he should be making an object, not chattering.” ThinkingShouldWritingImportantBookFictionAwarenessObjectsShapesPace Author:Thomas Perry
“I think in our time, you know, so much of the information we get is pre-polarized. Fiction has a way of reminding us that we actually are very similar in our emotions and our neurology and our desires and our fears, so I think it's a nice way to neutralize that polarization.” ThinkingKnowsWayDesireEmotionFictionNiceInformationOur TimeRemindingNeurologyPolarization Author:George Saunders
“If you think of a work of fiction as a kind of scale model of the world, then the positive valences - where things turn out better than you thought they would - ought to be in there somewhere, too.” IfsThinkingWorldKindTurnsFictionOughtModelsScalesBetter Than You Author:George Saunders
“And I do think that great fiction, even when it's comedic, has an urgency or an inevitability to it, a sense that the writer absolutely had to write this particular story in this way.” ThinkingWayWritingStoriesFictionParticularUrgencyInevitabilityComedic Author:Karen Russell
“Would-be novelists need to bring equal parts arrogance and ignorance to the task before them. The arrogance is almost self-explanatory. Walk into any bookstore or library, calculate how many lifetimes the average person would need to read all the fiction contained therein. To think that one has anything to contribute, to any genre or tradition, takes genuine hubris.” ThinkingNeedsWritingPersonsSelfWould BeWalksFictionIgnoranceEqualTraditionTasksLifetimeLibraryAverageGenuineGenreNovelistsArroganceBookstoresAverage PersonHubris Author:Laura Lippman
“I think you can get away with being a bit more political in science fiction.” ThinkingPoliticalBitsFictionScience FictionGet Away Author:Rupert Sanders
“Fiction just has a lot more room for ambivalence and internal conflict, contradiction, and for me that sums up so much of what people felt after 9/11 - confusion even. And I think that's hard to capture in journalism.” PeopleThinkingHardFeltRoomsFictionConflictConfusionJournalismContradictionInternalsCaptureAmbivalenceInternal Conflict Author:Amy Waldman
“I think a lot of kids get scared by 'E.T.' Sometimes when I do the science-fiction conventions, I'll have a 35-year-old guy with tatts and piercings all over, and he comes up and says, 'You know, it scared me so much I still can't watch it.” ThinkingKnowsYearsStillsSometimesKidsGuyFictionWatchesScience FictionScaredCome UpConventionsPiercingsOld Guys Author:Dee Wallace
“...But I don't think I'm the only person who is tired of books and movies full of paper-doll characters you don't care about, who have no self-respect and no respect for anybody or any institution....And I don't want to sound preachy or Victorian, but I'm tired of amorality in fiction and in real life. Immorality is a fascinating human dilemma that creates suspense for the readers and tension for the characters, but where is the tension in an amoral situation? When people have no personal code, nothing is threatening and nothing is meaningful.” PeopleThinkingWantWritingHumansPersonsBookRealSelfCharacterCareSoundFictionSituationReaderPaperInstitutionsTiredDon't CareMeaningfulReal LifeSuspenseCodeTensionSelf RespectFascinatingThreateningDollsDilemmaI'm TiredImmoralityVictorianNo RespectBooks And MoviesAmorality Author:Olive Ann Burns
“However far fiction writers stray from their own lives and experiences - and I stray pretty far from mine - I think, ultimately, that we may be writing what we need to write in some way, albeit unconsciously.” ThinkingWayNeedsWritingMayFictionMinesFiction Writers Author:Wally Lamb
“I think I write fiction for the opportunity to get beyond the limits of my own life.” ThinkingWritingOpportunityMy OwnFictionLimitsMy Own Life Author:Wally Lamb
“I think science fiction is very bad at prediction.” ThinkingFictionScience FictionPredictions Author:China Mieville
“I think the role of science fiction is not at all to prophesy. I think it is to tell interesting, vivid, strange stories that at their best are dreamlike intense versions and visions of today.” ThinkingStoriesTodayInterestingFictionVisionRolesStrangeScience FictionIntenseVersionsVividStrange Stories Author:China Mieville