Susan Straight Quotes

I have realised just how important it is to readers to feel that fictional stories are based on reality.

There was no difference between my characters and the life my readers were going to have to face.

When I put magic into a book - whether it's a wizard or a crusty old werewolf - I'm asking a reader to swallow a huge leap that is counter to everything he or she knows. An extra big helping of reality makes that leap go down a lot easier.

When Richard Pryor did comedy, it was like he was having a conversation.

In memoir, you have to be particularly careful not to alienate the reader by making the material seem too lived-in. It mustn't have too much of the smell of yourself, otherwise the reader will be unable to make it her own.

I like to believe that if you pay close attention to the sentences as they unfold, they will draw you in rather than pushing you away.

I didn't want it to be a book that made pronouncements.

Usually, when people get to the end of a chapter, they close the book and go to sleep. I deliberately write a book so when the reader gets to the end of the chapter, he or she must turn one more page.

Your protagonist is your reader's portal into the story. The more observant he or she can be, the more vivid will be the world you're creating. They don't have to be super-educated, they just have to be mentally active. Keep them looking, thinking, wondering, remembering.

I've never set out to seduce my reader. I don't see him at all clearly.

A book is always a dialogue with other readers and other books.

My relationship with my readers is somewhat theatrical. One of the main things I try to do in my work is delight my readers.

I'm not an interviewer. I have conversations.

I go to great lengths to make certain situations feel right to the reader.

I'm not interested in cutting the feet off my characters or stretching them to make them fit my certain political view.

It can become an exercise in trying to get the reader to like and admire you instead of an exercise in creative art.

Yes, I, well, when I write, as often as I can, I try to write as if I'm talking to people. It doesn't always work, and one shouldn't always try it, but I try and write as if I am talking, and trying to engage the reader in conversation.

Whenever I write, I'm always thinking of the reader.

There is also this benefit in brag, that the speaker is unconsciously expressing his own ideal. Humor him by all means, draw it all out, and hold him to it.

I understand that when people read my books that there's something there - but I don't identify with it.

If I've vividly laid out the narrative, the reader will come to his own conclusions.

Even though reality TV is very manipulated, it's all manipulated so that something real happens. And so, our job in this era is to make that real thing happen, because nobody wants to see any more manipulated, pre-planned performances. That era is over.

My job is to allow the character to live and breathe - and become as real to the reader as he or she is to me.

The last paragraph, in which you tell what the story is about, is almost always best left out.

My writing is a very authentic journey of discovery. I'm going out there to learn who I am. My readers, consequently, take the same journey as my protagonist.