Alex Flinn Quotes

I want prose fiction to be recognized as that, and I'm not interested in writing as it becomes more personal.

While growing up, I always had to depend on foreign authors for page-turners. I think of myself as a commercial writer, and my job is simple to entertain you.

I wrote a novel. It's called 'The Middlesteins.' It's fiction. It's not a memoir. I'm not a spokesperson.

I spend my life writing fiction, so reading fiction isn't much of an escape. That's not always true, but I don't read much contemporary fiction.

I do want to write about Jane Whitefield again, but only when I have a good enough idea - something I've figured out about her that's news and that's worth a reader's time.

Like some kind of particularly tenacious vampire the short story refuses to die, and seems at this point in time to be a wonderful length for our generation.

I think the short story is a very underrated art form. We know that novels deserve respect.

Since I grew up, I have never deliberately used any technique at all other than the physical shaping of my tale so that it more or less resembles what has been thought of as a novel for these last two hundred years.

There are many reasons why novelists write, but they all have one thing in common - a need to create an alternative world.

I do think novels are overlooked. I did write one some years ago that I think is quite good, called 'The End of the Story,' not to blow my own horn.

I like novelists who can create other interesting worlds.

In terms of fiction, I'd rather go out and have a good time than read a book about someone having a good or bad time.

I am a better novelist than a poet, playwright, or essayist.

My temperament is not geared to that of a novelist.

It means that no matter what you write, be it a biography, an autobiography, a detective novel, or a conversation on the street, it all becomes fiction as soon as you write it down.

The trouble with calling a book a novel, well, it's not like I'm writing the same book all the time, but there is a continuity of my interests, so when I start writing a book, if I call it 'a novel,' it separates it from other books.

The novel has always been the form that incorporates other forms. For me, it has always been the ultimate medium.

I tend to be more of a novel writer. In fact, some of my novels started out as short stories, and I just got carried away! I think some of my best writing is in the short story form, but novels come more naturally to me.

A novel means a new way of doing a story. If you go back the origins of a novel, 'Clarissa' - that's not a novel; it's just a bunch of letters. But it isn't! Because it's organised in a particular way! A novel is what you make of it.

Fiction and nonfiction, for me, involve very different processes.

I have assiduously avoided calling my books novels.

The short story, it's not a step on the way to becoming a novelist.

I have always loved short stories. I have been at least as influenced by the short story masters as I have been by novelists.

I come from a prose background. I come from short story background, and that led me into novels.

I think once you write fiction, you put it out, and it can be interpreted in a variety of ways, some of which are going to be shocking to the writer.