Lynn Coady Quotes

I would never make up a character who didn't exist or an event that didn't transpire. If you're a real writer, you have other tools in your toolbox to build drama.

The kind of fiction I'm trying to write is about telling the truth.

You can only be yourself, and it sounds cheesy, but when it comes to filmmaking, there's really nowhere to hide.

I don't want to protect my characters. I don't do it with Muslims, either. My job is not to make us look perfect. My job is to make us look messy.

Years ago I read an interview with Paula Fox in which she said that in writing, truth is just as important as story. Reading that interview was the first time I really understood that there's no point in trying to impress people with my cleverness when I can just try to write honestly about what matters most to me.

All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience. My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it.

Trust the tale, not the teller.

I don't really distinguish between sympathy and honesty when I'm writing. The two go together - I'm interested in inhabiting my characters, seeing the world through their eyes.

I want to write without shame or pride or over-compensation in one direction or another. To write freely.

The feedback I get is that my books are honest. I don't sugar-coat anything. Life is really hard.

Why do you think the fans like us - why they prefer our street raps over all that phony stuff out there? Because we're telling the real story of what it's like living in places like Compton. We're giving them reality. We're like reporters. We give them the truth.

When you look at my campaign, I don't go around sugarcoating things.

The kind of true-life writing that is fun to read - that makes an ally of the reader - is the kind that you are so nervous about putting down on paper that you lock the Word file with a secret password and encrypt it - and all of it.

I am not a fan of referencing your own work when it's in a different universe than what you're doing. That, to me, is a wink at the audience, and winking isn't actually cool when you're not, like, 10.

Our scribblings are usually not lyrics but whirrings, without colour or resonance, like the tone of an engine-wheel. I believe that the cause lies in the fact that when people write, they forget for the most part to dig deeply into themselves and to feel the whole import and truth of what they are writing.

I made a choice that I was not going to be a pretentious writer.

The singers who are the most honest are the ones who become immortalized.

The best thing to do when you're writing is to write about something you know instead of pretending. I mean, you can do that too, obviously, but when you write from your heart, it works so much better.

I don't feel like I'm a writer who works under any influence.

You find yourself writing the truth, because it's like, 'Well, I ain't writing for anyone but myself anyway.'

My advice for telling someone else's story is to try not to consciously bend the story in any particular direction - to listen with an open mind, to include the good with the bad, to attempt to quell one's biases and allow the person you're writing about to emerge as wholly as possible, warts and all.

I began to discover that, in addition to her stunning achievements, there were flaws as there would be in any person's life. I wanted to tell Madam's story in an honest, frank way.

I am not bothered with whether my characters are conventional or not. Because I am not in this for the designer labels and the autographs.

I try not to take any liberties when it comes to being factual. Sometimes you have to, just to make the song sound good. But I feel like, personally, if you've lived it, then you shouldn't stretch the truth. It should be that experience.

I can get behind any story that's willing to tell itself without apology.