Margaret Atwood Quotes

Fiction is about human beings, first and foremost. (It's not impossible to write fiction with no human protagonists, but it's very hard to keep the reader interested ...)

Basically, fiction is people. You can't write fiction about ideas.

I'm a novelist first, and I wrote a bunch of books, and everything I write, I just find people are more interesting when there's an element of humor to it.

I like novelists who can create other interesting worlds.

The basic quality that any great story must have is a story that illustrates the human condition.

I've tried to write deep and serious. I spent years working to write a story that would make my writing group cry.

I am also working on a couple of short stories for anthologies. This is new to me and I'm enjoying it.

Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over world-building.

First and foremost, I consider myself a storyteller. And I'm endlessly fascinated with people, with what they do and why... and how they feel about it. Which means I'm interested in romance fiction. I was drawn to it, as both a reader and a writer, at the very beginning of my career. It's my kind of storytelling.

I have always enjoyed literature classes, and I took a fiction workshop for writing and analyzing at Curtis... I don't know if would do it professionally, but it's nice to have the balance with the music.

Outlines are the last resource of bad fiction writers who wish to God they were writing masters' theses.

As a writer, I've always believed that while my work and I myself are embedded in whatever period I am writing about, clearly I am sensitive to the winds that are blowing in the culture. At the same time, I have always felt that the issue was not to deal with the problem in the abstract, but to deal with the people who are in that problem. The emphasis is on the people. The general problem begins to resolve itself even before the play is finished.

There are vast differences between scripts and stories, of course. Few fiction writers would want to give up the opportunity to explore how the minds of their characters work, or to set aside the opportunity to provide necessary background exposition in a succinct fashion.

The older I get and the more fiction I write, the more I outline, the more I think about plot before I dive in and plunge too far.

I think the best stories always end up being about the people rather than the event, which is to say character-driven.

What we know about writing the novel is the novel.

With a novel, you have to have a story. It's much more important to have it matter to the reader what happens to people, and it has to make sense and end in a way that is satisfying. So I spend a lot more time thinking about that. Then the writing itself usually is easier for me, because I know where it's going.

When I'm writing a script, I don't worry about plot as much as I do about people. I get to know the main characters - what they need, what they want, what they should do. That's what gets the story going. You can't just have action, you've got to find out what the characters want. And then they must grow, they must go somewhere.

The more fiction you read and write, the more you'll find your paragraphs forming on their own.

One of the great things about TV is the story to tell can be very internal and really character-based.

I sat down and tried to write a story. "Ian MacArthur is a wonderful sweet fellow who wears glasses and peers out of them with delight." That was the first sentence. The problem was that I just couldn't think of the next one. After cleaning my room three times, I decided to leave Ian alone for a while because I was starting to get mad at him.

Short stories demand a certain awareness of one's own intentions, a certain narrowing of the focus.

Know the story before you fall in love with your first sentence. If you don’t know the story before you begin the story, what kind of a storyteller are you? Just an ordinary kind, just a mediocre kind – making it up as you go along, like a common liar.

It can be hard to write a skillfully entertaining fiction, but a great book wants to be more, and wants more from us.

Jane's stories are extremely sensible. Then Diana puts too many murders into hers. She says most of the time she doesn't know what to do with the people so she kills them off to get rid of them.