Quotes About Fiction

I'm an optimist. My own fiction, while it has its own dark warnings about pitfalls ahead, depicts the potential of science to improve society by networking human minds.

When I was growing up I loved reading historical fiction, but too often it was about males; or, if it was about females, they were girls who were going to grow up to be famous like Betsy Ross, Clara Barton, or Harriet Tubman. No one ever wrote about plain, normal, everyday girls.

And I plan to write a sequel to Dragon Rider.

I think the best way to sell a made-up character is to plant his feet into the real earth.

I wanted to show platonic friendship between men and women, because I think it is underutilised in fiction.

In the five months I wrote the final draft of 'The Association of Small Bombs,' I never fell out of the book. The world was real to me: plausible and powerful.

I like fiction and the kind of history that gives the grace and flavor of fiction to the past. No bloviation on current events, please. I can write that junk myself.

There is an element of autobiography in all fiction in that pain or distress, or pleasure, is based on the author's own. But in my case that is as far as it goes.

Even my fiction novels are all about outdoor adventure, and have plenty of information to encourage the reader to get interested in adventure and conservation.

It's a cliche, and in a way it's a conservative idea about fiction, but I did learn the hard way that plot does need to dictate the story.

Traditionally in crime fiction, women exist as a bedroom convenience or to screw up in order that the plot may progress. I wanted no part of that.

Sometimes I'll feel down and realise it's because of a depressing plot.

I'm always writing about character first. Plot, such as it is, comes from the characters.

The idea that I'm going to have to sit down to write some fiction where I'm going to have to think of a plot would really scare me, because it would come out a mess.

I feel a lot of adult fiction looks down on plot as a lesser form of literature.

I love good stories; you have to have a good plot - characters which intertwine with a good plot.

There is no 'right' way to begin a novel, but for me, plot has to wait. The character comes first.

For me, plot always comes out of character, so I had to be sure of my characters.

Use plot to buttress a story.

To me, it all comes down to things being character-driven. It's hard for me to look beyond that. CG and all this cool stuff - so be it. But to me, it pretty much begins and ends with character-driven plots rather than technologically-driven plots.

I was commissioned to write some romantic fiction, and I really liked doing those, and they were very instructive in terms of building characters and plots. But it never felt right for me.

People like the Bosch books because they like Harry Bosch, not because the plots are fantastic.

Every time I write 'Stephanie Plum', it's going to be Katherine Heigl's face there.

As for futuristic costumes, I loved doing 'Gattaca' because I'm a minimalist at heart, and it's a very minimal film. Plus, with Uma Thurman, Ethan Hawke and Jude Law, how could you go wrong?