Arthur Slade Quotes

For me, even in my first book, the pleasures of writing anything magical is that it has to be physical. It has to be grounded and very much in this world. Then, I get to play with all the consequences of this new thing.

You can't write about fantasy without being ridiculous.

Fantasy is my genre and my home in the writing world. I consider it the biggest writing room in all literature, where there are literally no boundaries at all.

Most of my short stories are fantasy.

Generally, I think most of my writing tends to have some kind of magical element to it. That's the way I can access the emotional life of the character.

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

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.

All fantasy should have a solid base in reality.

An editor named Kerrie Hughes wanted me to write a short story that brought my fire-spider Smudge from my goblin books into the present-day world. I came up with libriomancy as a way to make that happen.

I loved the idea of a book of fairytales meant especially for peculiar children, and I love even more the idea of making that fictional book real.

When writing fantastical literature, your biggest problem is getting your audience to believe the fantastical elements of your story.

I always try to have my supernatural or fantasy elements feel grounded in reality so they're easier for the reader to accept and digest.

My idea of a good fantasy is something that's absolutely grounded in reality. And there's a little element that doesn't belong there - and that's the fantasy element - that you have to react to and deal with in a completely real way.

What I like about fairy tales is the language and the matter-of-fact way of introducing magic, where it's accepted that a fox could talk or a gate could just appear in a wall. I think fairy tales are so psychological.

The challenge is to write about real things magically.

You always try to do your own thing. One of the things I wanted to do was to write a book that combines some of the best traits of contemporary fantasy with some of the traits of the historical novel.

I've always liked fairy tale and spectacle. I wouldn't say I was a fantasy fan, but anything beyond reality I've always found exciting - the work of David Lynch, the work of Tim Burton. But for me, I also love those things that are absolutely about human relationships.

My feeling is that writing Fantasy should be harder - not easier - than writing any other kind of fiction.

I think I have a God complex, and I like moving mountains and writing stories that affect entire worlds, and it's a bit hard to do that in a contemporary setting because you have reality intruding. Whereas, when you set your own reality, you can make up your own rules and do whatever you like.

I'm an escapist kind of writer.

The real world is the fantasy writer's scrapbook. Real history, real geography, real customs and religions are all invaluable sources of guidance and inspiration.

First of all, writing at best - certainly fiction writing - more and more I think is magic.

No matter what you write, you actually can't help retelling a fairy tale somewhere along the way.

Most of my books have been written in the form of fantasy.

The writer is always tricking the reader into listening to their dream.