Ken Follett Quotes

Sometimes I can spend as long revising a manuscript as I spent writing it in the first place.

Like all editors, I assume, I'm a reactor.

I write by myself initially. That's the way I've always written, just working on pure thought by myself. Then I bring it to the table with whoever I'm collaborating with.

I depend on good editors and a good director.

After my husband spell-checks one of my manuscripts, my editor says, 'It's been Normanized.'

And the most important thing you can do is learn to edit yourself. And then go back and rewrite.

It's much like writing a screenplay with someone else and that's how we view it, I think.

I probably spend 90% of my time revising what I've written.

'The New Yorker' was really my first experience with serious editing. Previously, I'd more or less just had copyediting with a few suggestions - not much.

The writer marks the changes he wants to make, while a proofreader also goes through the galley, checking it page-by-page against the manuscript. Once all these changes are identified, a second-pass proof is made, and this, too, gets sent to the author and the proofreader, and the process begins anew.

There's a fairy story called the 'The Shoemaker and the Elves' where this old cobbler keeps leaving leather out overnight and wakes up the next day, and there's a new pair of shoes. Co-authoring is a little like that. You send off the manuscript to your partner, and a few days later, you check your email, and hey, there's more book in here!

As a writer who has collaborated on projects, you give your life over to that project.

I love drafting like I love eating ice cream or having sex; I love revising like I love doing logic puzzles; I love line-editing like I love perfectly organizing a bookshelf; I hate reviewing copyedits and the second round of proofreading because, by then, I'm getting pretty tired of my own words. They all have their own challenges, though.

I work very closely with my co-writer, Efthimis Filippou. Ideas either start from him or me, and then the other one develops it, and it's a constant conversation.

I leave my editor to put the periods and commas in.

Our rule was that we [with Kate DiCamillo] would write everything together, literally every word.

If you're going to write a song, try to get together with a collaborator because it's better to write with collaborators.

That first writing session, what Dan Hill calls a creative blind date, is always a real challenge, and you bring that back to your partner when you return to writing with them.

We like writing with each other; it's fun.

There are two kinds of editors, those who correct your copy and those who say it's wonderful.

Many people can contribute suggestions to a speech, but only one person can write it.

Writing with a partner is, in some ways, an easy but odd process. Two people come into a room and look to each other for motivation. One might not be in the right mood at any given moment. And somehow, you begin; somehow, out of your exchange of thoughts, something engages both of you, and the process of collaboration begins.

Journalism is a team sport. Writing novels is golf: it's you and the ball.

With writing, I prefer the solo effort, but when a team is working right, as it did on 'The Grifters,' boy, it's exhilarating.

Writing a comic book series, you're so reliant on whoever the artist is. It truly is collaboration.