Patrick Rothfuss Quotes

I have to do more close research and fact checking for the science fiction. This is not however to say that writing good fantasy does not involve doing good research.

The MFA program did one great thing for me: It taught me how to be a better reader and critic. Nothing I wrote during my time at Columbia remains - but learning how to really deconstruct a work of fiction - that, of course, is a permanent part of me now.

As a writer, I absorb stories, allow them to churn within my own head and heart - often for years - until I find a way of telling them that fits both my time and temperament.

I want to do some fiction writing, I've had some pretty good luck with short stories, I'd like to do a couple of larger things.

Jigsaw Lady is the working title of a science fiction novel I've had in my head for darn near 15 years. I think I'll start work on it next year (in all my spare time) but I'd like to get it finished some day.

Every time I write a book, I think how I could be doing it better to please people - a nicer book with nicer characters - but I just can't.

While I was in high school, I discovered and began writing science fiction.

I don't think I'm a natural novelist. Plot is definitely one of my weaker points. I've been working on it a long time, and it's not getting much better.

'A Fair Maiden' existed in notes and sketches for perhaps a year. When I traveled, I would take along with me my folder of notes - 'ideas for stories.' Eventually, I began to write it and wrote it fairly swiftly - in perhaps two months of fairly intense writing and rewriting. Most of my time writing is really re-writing.

It would have been very easy to drift into writing a non-fiction book so by taking it away from Nottingham I forced myself to imagine much more of it.

Everything you write makes you better. But if you really need a tip, here's one: a good story begins in opposition to its ending. That means you work out how it finishes first, and then begin the story as far away from that point - in terms of character development - as you can.

What I like to write about is stuff I know. I don't think I could write a novel. I don't think I have it in me to come up with those kinds of characters.

I want to be a better writer. I want to learn and grow, to know how to tell stories in a different and more challenging way. I've learned it doesn't get easier each time. It actually gets harder.

Usually, by the time I hit 'save' before taking a nap, my word count has gone down, but the world I'm creating feels more tangible than it did before.

I was writing fantasy as soon as I could hold a pen.

I could make up characters till the cows came home. Plot's what hard. Very hard.

The more fiction you read and write, the more you'll find your paragraphs forming on their own.

I have 20 or 30 books completely plotted out in my mind - mysteries, thrillers, horror, romance, science fiction. You name it.

I want to wake up one morning and know how to write page one, or page 10, or page 250. But I never seem to know how to do it. Every book is different and takes a different structure, style, process, etc. And relearning how to write is where the insanity comes from.

How much research I have to do depends on the nature of the story. For fantasy, none at all.

I love rewriting because that is where and how you discover the story. It's like you have this skeleton, and you get to put flesh on it and hair and clothes and really wonderful jewelry.

We had to do the same thing here. To top that sequel was quite a task. Mike had a couple of good conceptual humour and character ideas, which got me back into it.

I throw everything I have into whatever story I'm writing - and so there's something immensely gratifying about finishing one piece and then starting fresh with a new setting, time period and cast of characters, getting to see the world through a completely different lens each time.

With a novel, there is no hurrying it. You're constantly walking into the unknown.

So in the first draft, I'm inventing people and place with a broad schematic idea of what's going to happen. In the process, of course, I discover all sorts of bigger and more substantial things.