Junot Diaz Quotes

For the traditional fantasies, a lot more of my research comes from reading rather than doing. I like my worlds to feel real, so I do a lot of world building research.

I don't really understand why so many fantasy writers choose to focus on worlds that just seem strangely denuded. But to them, I guess it doesn't seem strange. And I guess that's their privilege. It isn't mine.

Science fiction in particular is often assumed to be about the future, or about some abstract technological or philosophical idea, or just about 'adventure,' but writers can't build worlds out of nothing. We use bits and pieces of the real world to assemble our fictional ones.

Setting is my primary joy as a writer, building a world and watching people respond to it.

How much research I have to do depends on the nature of the story. For fantasy, none at all.

I grew up reading comic books, pulp books, mystery and science fiction and fantasy. I'm a geek; I make no pretensions otherwise. It's the stuff that I love writing about. I like creating worlds.

There's a certain amount of world-building that I hold off on until I need it for the story. World building in advance isn't really my thing, maybe because I didn't grow up playing RPG's.

All fantasy should have a solid base in reality.

I am a huge fan of world-building. I love doing it in my own books, and I love reading it done well.

In the field of fantastic fiction, the question of world-building is not uncontroversial. But I grew up with 'Dungeons and Dragons,' so that whole world-building thing is very close to my heart.

I think, for me, there's The Book I Should Write and The Book I Wanted to Write - and they weren't the same book. The Book I Should Write should be realistic, since I studied English Lit. It should be cultural. It should reflect where I am today. The Book I Wanted to Write would probably include flying women, magic, and all of that.

In a sense, fantasy is a freer play of the imagination. You can achieve exactly the situation you want with less groundwork, less of a need to fill in all of the background. For science fiction, I would use a lot of sources to set up, for instance, what a being from another planet would be like.

I've always loved massive worlds, whether in fantasy or science fiction. I like the idea of making my own rules as well as utilizing everything that I love or inspires me. It's very freeing to know you can write a story that can be as big as your own imagination.

I do take this insane pleasure in world-building. I get the world in my head, but I have to make sure everyone else gets it.

I think writing for a world one has invented can be infinitely more interesting than writing for the world we've all inherited.

Historical fiction is actually good preparation for reading SF. Both the historical novelist and the science fiction writer are writing about worlds unlike our own.

You can't write about fantasy without being ridiculous.

All good books have one thing in common - they are truer than if they had really happened.

Novels are such mysterious and amorphous and tender things.

Sometimes I read a script and it's obvious from early on that it's one where the suspension of disbelief has to develop strongly from page one. Some are more reality-based.

But I think, and hope, that the novels can be understood and enjoyed as science fiction, on their own terms.

A good scenario doesn't make a good science fiction story - but it's a setting within which a good science fiction story might be told.

Realism isn't something most people associate with the fantasy genre, yet it's an essential element of great fantasy writing.

I love science fiction when it's well-done. I don't like campy stuff. I don't like stuff that's too fantastical.

After all, you put a lot into creating a universe and everything that goes with it, and it seems a shame to use it only once.