Owen King Quotes

The stories I write are often literal to events that have happened or observations that I've made, and sometimes they're fantastical.

A few people have tried to make me see that my writing isn't quite their thing by saying to me: 'What about realism?' To which my general response is, 'What about it?' However, I wouldn't be at all surprised if one of my favorite writers, Marilynne Robinson, was to say something similar if asked 'What about the fantastic?'

I've been falsely accused of drawing too much from real life. But I am a petty thief - I take little things. And, I mean, I can hardly write 10 words before I start to make things up. I start to invent, because that's what I want to do. I'm running away to an invented place.

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

Writers can take offense when someone asks what's real or autobiographical in our work because, to us, that's not what counts. The bits taken from life are tiny scales on the dragon's tail - what about that whole beautiful writhing, fire-breathing dragon?

The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.

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.

A work of fiction is conceived very much the same way as a dream occurs in the mind of a sleeper. But a lot of it is imagination. It's not based on real people.

When I write my books, actually, I'm known for very logical rule-based magic systems. I write with one foot in fantasy and one foot in science fiction.

Anyone who has set out to invent a purely imaginary story knows that the whole thing is fantasy, from beginning to end; there must be a sense of magic created about the most restrained of naturalism.

I always take a story that's kind of out there, like an urban myth. I take some possibility that people imagine, that they are familiar with, and try to turn it into a story.

The only thing that matters to me about my stories is that they're entertaining and they're funny. And I tend to get bored easily, so I generally throw something supernatural in. I would say they're humorous novels that have a supernatural bent, but that's as close as you're going to get to fitting them all in the same basket.

I have a longing for fiction, to try to believe in it and to disappear into it.

When I write for kids, I have to make sure they know what can't happen. They have to know it's a fantasy. But when I write for adults, they have to think it's real. Every detail has to be real or they won't buy it.

I don't quite operate within the realist mode. I kind of push the stories out towards the cusp of believability - that's the area of interest for me.

If a fantasy, if a story can help you feel something, I think that's really cool.

I find fantasy easier to write. If I'm going to write science fiction, I spend a lot more time thinking up justifications. I can write fantasy without thinking as much. I like to balance things out: a certain amount of fantasy and a certain amount of science fiction.

As a small child, I could watch anything happen and tell a story, and it was funny.

Writers don't write about people they know. They write what they know about people.

Writing is so fun precisely because if you take out the right adjective, the readers can decide what kind of book is in their hands. Suspension of disbelief should not be mandatory in contemporary writing.

A notion for a story is for me a confluence of real events, historical perhaps, or from my own memory to create an exciting fusion.

My stories run up and bite me on the leg - I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.

I feel like my brain is more geared towards a novel than it is to a movie.

I never set out to write literature; I set out to tell stories. And some of my work may be very raunchy and very bloodthirsty - but life, for me, is a violent thing.

A book suggests a whole world and story that I could have never thought of in a million years.