John Sandford Quotes

Reporters have to use their imagination, really put themselves in the shoes of the person they want to interview.

Great questions make great reporting.

And as a result, I guess I'm just kind of a rubberneck. I'm kind of a - someone who likes to see things and likes to see these events and talk to the people who make them happen. But I don't think journalists are as important as the people they cover.

It isn't as if a writer merely records life as it unfurls. Reality does not automatically transcribe as literature; real people are not shapely, compelling characters to be harvested. Charming facts and sharp observations rarely slide seamlessly into whatever narrative is at hand.

I'm a journalist; I love doing interviews, and I hope that will continue.

I feel like, in some ways, I'm just a journalist.

I think journalists and filmmakers are keen observers. And actors must also be sharp observers as they draw their characters and their stories from what they experience around them. After all, that is what actors, filmmakers, journalists are trained to be: observers. And then they do something with their observations.

When I was there, something clicked in my head; I found myself interviewing people, searching out facts and figures. Later on I became much more self-conscious of what I was doing.

I think the most important thing journalism taught me is to mine for details. The details are key. You can't try to be funny or strange or poignant; you have to let the details be funny or strange or poignant for you.

I'm sure that everything you do contributes to the sort of novel that you write. A lot of actors have an understanding of drama and a good ear for dialogue and also the rhythm of speech. Similarly, my 16 years in radio drama has influenced me. You only have 45 minutes, or 7,000 words, to tell a story, so every scene has to have a point.

I've never had a written script.

I've got a particular way of writing novels, and that carries over into the way I write comics and games, too. I'm a news journalist by background, so I approach everything as reporting - I treat it as real, I ask the questions I'd ask in a real situation, and I let the characters speak for themselves.

The great thing about journalism is that there is so much exposure to all kinds of people who can turn up later as characters, whether you intend it or not.

If there's anything I'm keen to get better at in my writing, then it's the writing of prose as opposed to the writing of dialogue.

I love writing dialogue, and I think a lot of my writing is visual and very cinematic.

I tend to write one character at a time. But I don't write the entirety of one character at a time.

I do like to work on a Marvel method, so if I've got the opportunity, and the writer is happy to do it, I like to have a writer detail what happens on a page, but not saying what happens in every scene.

When people ask me about my dialogue, I say, 'Don't you hear people talking?' That's all I do. I hear a certain type of individual, I decide this is what he should be, whatever it is, and then I hear him. Well, I don't hear anybody that I can't make talk.

Only a reader can become a writer. Develop a lively intellect and the ability to become interested in anything, no matter how mundane it might seem at first. Look for the story. Develop an eye for detail. Feed your mind and your brain: learn as much as you can about everything you can.

Novelists should be like scientists, dissecting the cadaver.

That's always the most productive research - research into tone, into voice. Facts are nice, too, but facts are more raw material than creative inspiration.

I consider plot a necessary intrusion on what I really want to do, which is write snappy dialogue.

I've been writing screenplays for a long time, and a lot of it came out of the journalism I was doing.

I never took creative writing.

I am a writer who happens to use some tools of journalism.