Faran Tahir Quotes

When you write stories linking reality to a big storyline, people relate to it better.

Stories have a special way of putting us inside the people, inside the boots of the soldiers. You're absorbed in a way a documentary or nonfiction can't do for you.

The story is a machine for empathy. In contrast to logic or reason, a story is about emotion that gets staged over a sequence of dramatic moments, so you empathize with the characters without really thinking about it too much. It is a really powerful tool for imagining yourself in other people's situations.

My first duty to write a gripping yarn. Second is to convey credible characters who make you feel what they feel. Only third comes the idea.

Fiction works when it makes a reader feel something strongly.

For me, there's a fine line between telling a story that's fictional with lots of details and then removing yourself too much from it, so it's bloodless, a little too fictional.

But in film you always watch situations or stories that you really have no relation to. A lot of times just because there's no personal connection doesn't mean you can't connect with the film or the characters in the film.

To connect with the characters, you need to connect with the world. If the world feels vaguely familiar, I believe the characters will feel relatable.

I think that ultimately any effective drama or tragedy tries to put you as much as it can into the protagonist's shoes.

My stories include realistic fiction and fantasy.

Fiction is all about vicarious experiences and getting into other people's heads in a way that no other art form lets you.

One of the great things about fiction is you can use an issue and describe it in human terms.

If you are watching a fairy tale, that's why you go to fairy tales: you want these uncomplicated stories and uncomplicated characters. But if it's meant to be real life, you want there to be some reflection of your experience and have something you can hook into.

Stories are emotional journey where we can project ourselves emotionally in another space.

People just love stories.

In all my characters, I try to find an iota of myself, and in Castle, I found a lot. He gets away with a lot, so that's fun.

My favorite sci-fi always uses its hook to amplify some bigger theme or idea - some emotional thrust.

You need to be able to climb into a narrative and zip it up under your chin. You need to be able to see through the eyes of the hero, smell what he's smelling, hear what he's hearing.

I never set out to write literature; I set out to tell stories. And some of my work may be very raunchy and very bloodthirsty - but life, for me, is a violent thing.

You know, we love stories and we love narrative; we love to get lost in an author's world.

Stories have always been the things that entertain me and make me feel happy and sad and move me and give me the experience of being able to live many lives in one lifetime. It's the best thing about being alive.

I think it's very easy to disgust the reader with violence on the page - that's incredibly easy - but it's far harder to make a reader care about a character.

I like to know the places I write about. I feel like it helps me ground the novel. My novels are 'realistic novels,' but they can also be fantastical, so it's nice to have a setting that grounds them a little bit.

Anybody who sits down to write, and they think 'thriller,' maybe shouldn't be thinking that way. Maybe we should be thinking 'novel,' maybe 'thriller' way in the background, but that these are real people to whom things are happening. It just happens to be a hell of an exciting story.

When I look back at many of the moments of wonder, awe, or terror that I've got from science fiction, it's often been because I've been put in the head of one of the characters.