Armistead Maupin Quotes

Characters develop as the book progresses, but any that start to bore me end up in the wastepaper basket. In real life, we may have to put up with tedious people, but not in novels.

The language fictional characters use is chosen for effect, at least if the author is concentrating.

It took me years to learn that sentences in fiction must do much more than stand around and look pretty.

I couldn't resist hiding some historical details and a few clues relevant to the plot and characters of 'A Discovery of Witches' throughout the pages of the novel.

Of course, all writers draw upon their personal experiences in describing day-to-day life and human relationships, but I tend to keep my own experiences largely separate from my stories.

When the reader and one narrator know something the other narrator does not, the opportunities for suspense and plot development and the shifting of reader sympathies get really interesting.

Successful fiction does not need to be validated by 'real life'; I cringe whenever a writer is asked how much of a novel is 'real'.

All of my novels are seeded in real life events, and 'The Wreckage' is no different.

Crime is one of the leads of the show. If there's ever anything that deals with a character's personal life, you don't have to worry about it getting too crazy. People don't have to worry about character arcs. Each episode is a self-contained unit.

There is one plot point in one of the 'D'Arnath' books that I don't think I handled as well as I could have. Am I going to tell you which one? No way!

I always try to create conflict and drama in my books; it's the engine of the novel.

Part of the reason I wanted to write a novel was that in fiction I could do something that's difficult to do in real life, which is to dwell on the stark details of the experience without really needing to create that narrative of redemption.

In real life, coincidences happen all the time. In novels, they are leapt upon with fury.

Most of my books have always worked through juxtaposition, jumping through different point of views and time.

Life is not like a novel, but a novel can be like life. The best ones always are.

He was too young to know that, in any novel with a reasonable amount of forethought, there were no coincidences.

I want to keep telling stories of ordinary people.

In a series, you have the luxury of time to establish the character and build a rhythm. In a TV movie, you've got to come up with the rhythm now. Right now.

I love writing two narratives! I think concurrent storylines are my favorite way to write a book.

Every writer has compressed time and procedure, and used clarifying dialogue. That's not a scandal: it's a legitimate dramatic technique.

Whatever the case, oftentimes, for a story to feel complete to me, I need more than one point of view.

The fiction is not autobiographical. Maybe to some extent it is, of course.

A true storyteller is really good at writing himself into a corner and then finding a way out of that corner

Is a novel anything but a trap set for a hero?

I am simply not interested, at this point, in creating narrative scenes between characters.