Joanne Harris Quotes

Sometimes, I'll hear from other writers or folks in the publishing industry that my books are rule-breakers, which I take as a compliment.

Every time I write a new book, I want to push myself to try something different.

Writing a novel that crosses genres is a risk, but one well worth taking.

The thing I like so much about short stories is that there isn't as much of an investment of time so I'm free to experiment more. If it doesn't work out, I've only lost a week or two of work. If I screw up a novel I've lost at least a year's worth of work. But the nice thing is that those experiments with short stories can be carried over to novels when the experiments do work.

All novels are experimental.

I never plan. I never know what the next page is going to be..... But that's the fun of writing a novel or a story, because I don't know what's going to happen next.

The vast majority of fiction is written to markets and to this damnable business we have nowadays of categorizing everything.

On the other hand, now that I'm not dependent on fiction for my income, I've been writing more short stories despite the fact that there's no real paying market for short horror other than Cemetery Dance.

That's kind of like how jazz is sometimes. You're out there predicting the future, and no one believes you.

Octavia Butler was more interested in writing a good story than in worrying about where to slot it.

If you go all the way back, I've always written science-fiction, I've always written fantasy, I've always written horror stories and monster stories, right from the beginning of my career. I've always moved back and forth between the genres. I don't really recognise that there's a significant difference between them in some senses.

I'm a writer, not a genre.

I was a little concerned that a lot of people thought I wrote Merchant Ivory movies. I also thought if I was ever going to write something strange and difficult, that was the time.

I know from an editor's point of view or a publisher's point of view it's easier to slot me into a particular niche. But I know that I'd be bored unless I wrote a book that in some senses was a challenge.

I never know what's going to happen in a novel. I don't have a plan or an outline.

I always say that I'll have a go and see whether the poem works and if it does, then fine.

When I went to university in Colorado, I was encouraged to write very innovative, experimental things, and some of the short stories in 'Bearded Ladies' are a little bit experimental.

In studio films, everything has to be boxed in, everybody needs to know beforehand - this is comedy, this is sci-fi, this is drama - and what's the point of independent film if you don't get to experiment?

When you're a writer, you never know which of your pieces are going to gain a toehold and which will not, and it's best not to care too much.

We don't hold anything back. We go for broke, and if we have a good idea for a story line, we just use it because you never know and because the dynamics of the show are going to change.

I have a number of friends that try to live off their writing, and there's way more pressure for a hit or to write a certain type of book. You can't do a limited-edition short-story book with drawings unless you don't want to eat anything but ramen.

Publishers love to compartmentalize, and 'Second Chance' was not an easy novel to define.

Thus far, I've devoted my entire career to publishing genre short fiction, but I now look forward to applying that same level of curation to finding the best new novels and new authors.

I actually enjoy writing longer books because you have even more to get your storytelling teeth into.

I am a novelist. I traffic in subtleties, and my goal in writing a novel is to leave the reader not knowing what to think. A good novel shouldn't have a point.