Raphael Bob-Waksberg Quotes

If I'm going to invest the time in a novel, I want something more than the entertainment you get out of most genre fiction.

I hate even the idea of a synopsis. When stories are really working, when you're providing subtextual exploration and things that are deeply layered, you're obligated to not say things out loud.

I write short, my words tight to the thread of the narrative.

I like to read novels where the author seems knowledgeable, like someone you know you could walk calmly next to through a complicated situation, and he or she would be alive to its meaning and ironies. And you wouldn't even have to mention them out loud to each other.

I'm rereading Jenny Offill's 'Dept. of Speculation.' I love it, and she's just a magician. Line by line and paragraph by paragraph, it's mesmerizing and so intricately plotted and so nimble.

I am fascinated by storytelling glue. Anytime I see someone who's good at it, I stop and wonder, 'How'd they 'do this? Why can't I tear myself away?

Each piece I tell stands on its own, and then it all ties together. It segues from story to story, and then I wrap it up - like three-piece movements in a symphony.

I don't want my readers slowed down by long passages of narrative.

Too much detail can bog down any story. Enough with the history of gunpowder, the geology of Hawaii, the processes of whaling, and cactus and tumbleweed.

The books I love most are the ones that combine some sort of gripping story with really beautiful or stylish writing. Some of my favorites are 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy, 'The Virgin Suicides' by Jeffrey Eugenides, 'The Interpreter of Maladies' by Jhumpa Lahiri, and 'Blindness' by Jose Saramago.

The perfect story is one you can retell in three minutes, and every single sentence is interesting.

My intention here is to make it clear that not a single cell of my composition, here in regard to The Raven, is found by chance or intuition, that the composition moved towards perfection with the precision and inevitability of a mathematical equation.

Plot is a framework on which to drape other things. So once that's working, I can just let it go and do all the stuff that I love - 'Trojan horse' it. There are so many great YA heroines, and that's fantastic, but what about the emotionally complex boy out there? That's who I tend to write about.

I really believe that what happens one day affects the next, and I think that came from that experience of learning that if I told the score inning by inning, play by play, it built up to its natural climax.

When you've got good writing, you can kind of give up all the research, in a way, and start just following the emotional integrity of the journey of your character.

No one bothered reading the books and understanding - and again, I'm not being high-falutin' about it - but I think our books are great literature with great metaphors of real life dealing with fears and hopes.

If you consistently write 'The sun set' rather than 'The sun sank slowly in the bright western sky,' your story will move three times as fast. Of course, there are times you want the longer version for atmosphere - but not many. Wordiness not only kills pace; it bores readers.

Short fiction is the medium I love the most, because it requires that I bring everything I've learned about poetry - the concision, the ability to say something as vividly as possible - but also the ability to create a narrative that, though lacking a novel's length, satisfies the reader.

The writing is really important in books that affect me. I read for the writing. The story is usually of less interest to me. It's the words that break your heart.

Rachel Cusk's books are like pop-up volumes for grown-ups, the prose springing out of the page to bop you neatly between the eyes with its insights.

By definition, poetry works with qualities and dynamics that mainstream society is reluctant to face head-on. It's an interesting phenomenon that by necessity, poetry is just below the radar.

The thing about great poetry is we have no defenses against it.

'Trapped in the Closet' is pretty much forever. I've got a leash on this thing now. I'm going to walk it.

There's an arc to an action sequence, and you need to come out the other end knowing your character better, and maybe the story has moved forward in a compelling way.

You can tell a lot in shorthand.