Cassandra Clare Quotes

Basically, fiction is people. You can't write fiction about ideas.

When you're writing a novel - at least the way I write is I work from what I would call 'emotional atmosphere,' ambiance to ambiance.

What interests me in writing a novel is taking really remote voices, characters, and stories and beginning to create some kind of web.

I'm a novelist, so I can't write about ideas unless they're attached to people.

Well, for people who want to write best sellers, the best advice I can give is to say that the novel has to engage the reader emotionally.

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

The historical background is one of the easier aspects of writing a novel. Far more difficult is dreaming up the smaller, character-based scenes, scenes that rise entirely from one's own imagination.

Sometimes, I have themes that interest me or that touch on larger issues but, really, I'm just trying to figure out the plot, or how the characters work. I'm trying to make the best story I possibly can.

If I ever wrote a script myself, it would be strongly emotional material.

The writer of stories or of novels settles on men and imitates them; he exhausts the possibilities of his characters.

I love it when characters surprise you, just like real people. When I write a scene I just try to make the characters behave in a way that feels natural to them. Sometimes that means they make a left turn and do something unexpected. Those are always the best scenes in my opinion.

Being a novelist is the adult version of a kid creating a make-believe world. But unlike a child, a writer of fiction has to come up with a structured story, one that has as much meaning for others as it has for her.

You can't take a character anywhere they don't expect the character to go. But within those confines is where creativity lies.

I love writing letters. In order to write a novel in first person, I think I needed an addressee.

I can't write a novel without first really doing reporting. I don't even call it research; it's reporting. That process is very important to the granularity of my writing. I have to know what the reality is so I can be more convincing in the writing.

You can throw a novel into focus with one overheard line.

It's fun to improvise, but I still think it's better to have a great script, you know, like a Charlie Kaufman script.

My first job is to write the characters as full and authentic people as well as I can.

Writing a novel is actually searching for victims. As I write I keep looking for casualties. The stories uncover the casualties.

I'm big on story structure. I studied with John Truby, who mapped out story by means of moral wants and needs, and that's what I do. Hey, so does John Irving.

When you write a novel, you never have to be in the service of the reader. My only concern with my books is that the world that's created be as logical and whole as possible.

Settings are obviously important - and as a writer, you have to respect what was real at the time of the story you're writing. But the real key to success lies in finding the right characters to carry that story.

Writing a novel is not at all like riding a bike. Writing a novel is like having to redesign a bike, based on laws of physics that you don't understand, in a new universe. So having written one novel does nothing for you when you have to write the second one.

When you write a script, you always think about what your heart is asking.

I am much more aware of making the plot more original, avoiding contrivance, having the story matter much more. I used to think more about symbols consciously. Now I think much more about the story.