Alice McDermott Quotes

When I first concluded to print the book, I made an honest effort to construct it in the third person.

When you write what you know, you stay in control. One of the first things I encourage my writing students to do is to lose control - say what they want to say, break structure.

I'm very comfortable writing in the first person; it dives into the character in a way that's difficult if you're writing in the third person.

When I'm writing, I try to have the mask of my character on as I'm walking through the world.

When it comes to the form the narrative will take, whether first person, third person, or Aunt Grace's cat, I usually find that the story tells me which voice it prefers, and that often changes as I go along. And in the end it really doesn't matter as long as the author can rig those voices all in harness to pull the same load.

I always start a book thinking that it can be something other than first-person present, and I always come back to first-person present. It's just the easiest way.

Well see, I'm a good enough writer that not everybody in my books talks exactly like I do.

I almost always use first person voice in my novels. It has its limitations, but it gives a sense of immediacy that's hard to create with an anonymous, all-seeing narrator.

There are a lot of elements when you're writing, or when I'm writing, that are sitting in the back of your mind. I try to let them stay there, because they find their way in more naturally that way.

When I start a new novel, I often write 'test chapters' in different tenses and from different points of view in order to figure out which is best to tell the tale.

The omniscient narrator is a bizarre technique, when you think about it, and no one uses it much anymore. But for the novels I want to write, it's the only approach that makes sense to me.

I have always used emotion as a writing tool. That goes back to me being on the stage.

Point-of-view is a matter that readers rarely pay attention to, yet it's one of the most important story decisions an author makes.

My preferred style is to write in first person, so I always have to play around with possible narrator voices until I find something that works.

My readers often tell me that what they admire about my books is my ability to write from so many points of view. My challenge to myself is whether I'll ever be able to write a novel just from one point of view. It seems impossible.

I find it an easy way into writing pieces is to think what the character's voice is like, and start from there.

I have never successfully written in the third person. If there's a rhythm or a musicality that interests me, I become obsessed with the character, and I just have this need to spend time with him or her. Sometimes I'll be in the park playing ball, and I'll hear a kid say something that I've never heard before. Sometimes one word can set me off.

When asked, 'How do you write?' I invariably answer, 'one word at a time.'

I'm here to get the story on to the page. It would be good to catch your attention, and I have to make you want to read on, and I suppose I prefer you don't actually think about the 'how' at all - the writing technique, the 'style', or even who it is that's putting this together.

Write in a disciplined manner, but write in a way that is natural to the individual's thought processes.

I've only written two novels, neither of them published, where the book is dominated by a male point of view; in the 'Onyx Court' series, it's split roughly 50/50.

The elegance and the quality - the talent is always in the literature. I start with the word and I base everything on that. It doesn't make any difference to me.

The more gifted and talkative one's characters are, the greater the chances of their resembling the author in tone or tint of mind.

I once had a story editor ask me not to use the word 'placenta.' I wanted to say: 'Now tell me again how you got here?' Oh, right, an angel of God placed you into the bill of the stork.

I normally write in the first person, and my narrators are as real to me as any of the people I have worked with. They live and breathe in my imagination.