“The most difficult part of any crime novel is the plotting. It all begins simply enough, but soon you're dealing with a multitude of linked characters, strands, themes and red herrings - and you need to try to control these unruly elements and weave them into a pattern.” NeedsTryingEnoughCharacterDifficultNovelCrimeElementsRedPatternsThemeMultitudesLinkedStrandsUnrulyHerringCrime NovelsRed Herrings Author:Ian Rankin
“I think writing a poem is like being a greyhound. Writing a novel is like being a mule. You go up one long row, then down another, and try not to look up too often to see how far you still have to go.” ThinkingWritingTryingLooksLongStillsNovelLook UpMulesGreyhounds Author:Ron Rash
“How on earth could that be done? If you try to laugh and say 'No' at the same time, it sounds like neighing - yet people are perpetually doing it in novels. If they did it in real life they would be locked up.” PeopleIfsWritingTryingRealDoneWould BeEarthSoundNovelLaughingReal LifeLockedLocked Up Author:Hilaire Belloc
“In one deep sense, novels are concealed autobiography. I don't mean that you are telling facts about yourself, but you are trying to find out what you really think or who you are.” ThinkingWritingTryingMeanFactsNovelWho You AreAbout YourselfAutobiographyConcealedOne Deep Author:Robert Penn Warren
“Read like mad. But try to do it analytically - which can be hard, because the better and more compelling a novel is, the less conscious you will be of its devices. It's worth trying to figure those devices out, however: they might come in useful in your own work.” WritingTryingHardMightNovelFiguresConsciousMadDevicesCompelling Author:Sarah Waters
“When I was 30 or so - by that time I had become an assistant D.A. - I decided I would try to write a novel. To be clear: I did not decide to become a novelist. Honestly, it never crossed my mind that I could actually earn a living as a professional novelist.” WritingTryingMindNovelClearDecidedHonestlyNovelistsAssistants Author:William Landay
“I try to write things that can't be made into movies. My novels have thwarted many attempts to film them and I think that was true of the essay, too. If you'd actually tried to be true to the essay, it would have been, perhaps, boring. So taking that narrow little cast of characters and expanding it out, that was what was exciting about the project for me.” IfsThinkingWritingTryingLittlesHas BeensMadeCharacterFilmNovelProjectsExcitingCastsBoringBeing TrueEssaysExpanding Author:Jonathan Franzen
“The Brightwood Stillness is a novel I could not put down. On the surface, it is the lives of normal people in trying circumstances. Deeper, it is an uncannily perceptive exploration of male psychology… Pomeroy is a brave new voice capable of taking us beyond the clichés of war and its aftermath and into the secret heart of every man. This is simply the best novel I’ve read in a long time.” PeopleMenTryingHeartLongWarVoiceSecretNovelPsychologyCircumstancesNormalCapableLong TimeBraveMalesDeeperSurfaceEvery ManExplorationStillnessAftermathBest Novel Author:Andrew X. Pham
“Natural writers will often try to force themselves into a form - novel, story, screenplay, or poem - that is not necessarily the appropriate form for the way they see the world... if, in fact, they are writing from the artist's impulse, which is a deep, inchoate vision of some sort of order behind the apparent chaos of life on planet earth, they'll be driven then to express that vision in the creation of the object - the art object.” IfsWorldWayWritingTryingArtFactsStoriesEarthFormArtistOrderForceNaturalBehindsVisionNovelCreationObjectsPlanetsChaosDrivenImpulseAppropriateScreenplaysPlanet Earth Author:Robert Olen Butler