Tamzin Merchant Quotes

I like to sit down every day and not know where the book is going. I have no idea where the book is going to go or how it's going to end as I'm writing it.

I prefer to surprise myself as I'm writing. I'm not interested in it if I already know where it's going. So I have only the most general sense of what I'm doing when I start a story. I sometimes have a destination in mind, but how the story is going to go from Point A to Point Z is something I make up as I go along.

I never know how a novel is going to end, because you don't really know what's going to be at the bottom of a novel until you excavate it.

I start with a character and a situation, but I don't know what's going to happen until I write it. Sometimes things happen that surprise me.

True confession time: I never know where a book is going. I get a gut feeling the story is there, then pursue it with the enthusiasm of a hunting tiger on a trail. If I knew where I was going, I'd get bored out of my mind and stop writing.

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

I always say that, for me, writing a book is like a wacky Greyhound bus trip - I know where I'm starting and where I'll end up, but I have no idea what will happen along the way.

There are a few really fantastic stories left, and that kind of gives you some inspiration to find even new ones.

It's a discovery of a story when I write a book, a case of inching ahead on each page and discovering what's beyond in the darkness, beyond where you're writing.

I think there is often a 'what if' proposition that gets me thinking about all my novels.

I always think I know the way a novel will go. I write maps on oversized art pads like the kind I carried around in college when I was earnest about drawing. I need to have some idea of the shape of the novel, where its headed, so that I can proceed with confidence. But the truth is my characters start doing and saying things I don't expect.

In an essay, you have the outcome in your pocket before you set out on your journey, and very rarely do you make an intellectual or psychological discovery. But when you write fiction, you don't know where you are going - sometimes down to the last paragraph - and that is the pleasure of it.

If I knew a story page by page before I started writing it, I just wouldn't do it. The process of discovery is really important for my own enjoyment.

I get ideas for my books from people I know and what happens to them, from places I've been and what happens to me, and from things I read.

I like that it's challenging - that when I'm writing, I feel as if I'm pouring everything I have into the story until there's nothing left and I have to begin thinking about a new world and set of circumstances to research and explore.

A novel usually begins, in my experience, with a thought or image that won't leave me alone.

It is very enjoyable, writing a story. You get this idea. It takes hold of you. And then you spend day and night thinking about how to do it. And then you do it. And much later, you think, 'Oh, yes. That's an interesting question.'

My novels come from within me; they are things I feel I want to do.

I sort of love reading the scripts and going, 'Oh wow, what a great idea. I never would have thought of that.'

Even if I never sold another book, I'd keep writing, because the stories are here, in my head. Stories that just need to be told. I love watching a plot unfold, and feeling the surprise when the unexpected happens.

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.

Storytelling is what lights my fire.

I like to be surprised. Fresh implications and plot twists erupt as a story unfolds. Characters develop backgrounds, adding depth and feeling. Writing feels like exploring.

If I had a plot that was all set in advance, why would I want go through the agony of writing the novel? A novel is a kind of exploration and discovery, for me at any rate.

I got into writing because books and stories were always a big part of my life. I loved listening to them and then reading them, and I loved making them up.