Isaac Marion Quotes

It doubles your perception, to write from the point of view of someone you're not.

As a writer, it is always fun to imagine yourself in someone else's shoes.

I've written short stories from male perspectives before, and I've never had a problem with it as long as I've understood the character's emotions and motivations.

I'm writing for my ideal reader, for somebody who's willing to take the time, who's willing to get lost in a new world, who's willing to do their part. But then I have to do my part and give them a sound and a voice that they believe in enough to keep going.

I've still not written as well as I want to. I want to write so that the reader in Des Moines, Iowa, in Kowloon, China, in Cape Town, South Africa, can say, 'You know, that's the truth. I wasn't there, and I wasn't a six-foot black girl, but that's the truth.'

I wrote my first play at the age of 10, 55 years ago, and I've always found it a fantastic relief to imagine I know what things would be like from the point of view of other individuals and to send out signals from where I actually am not. Playwrights never need to write from the place where they are.

Not everyone writes well from a child's point of view.

I don't really distinguish between sympathy and honesty when I'm writing. The two go together - I'm interested in inhabiting my characters, seeing the world through their eyes.

I approach writing stories as a recorder. I think of my role as some kind of reporting device - recording and projecting.

As a writer, it is my job to tell a story. I don't want to get involved in social commentary; I just want to show issues from a different point of view. I want to show issues from a perspective that may not be highlighted.

As a writer, I've always been interested in others.

Part of being a fiction writer is being able to imagine how someone else is thinking and feeling. I think I've always been good at that.

I try to have something in common with my protagonists, especially when I'm writing in the first person.

I don't want to draw from my own experiences in life. I first like to become the character and then think from her point of view.

There are aspects of writing that require you to image yourself in various roles and guises, to stand in the shoes of others, to 'act' on an inner stage.

I don't judge my characters, and that's my job not to judge them. It's my job to treat them with respect and to just look at it from their point of view.

The joy of writing drama is putting yourself into different people's heads.

What I do in the writing of any character is to try to enter into the mind, heart and skin of a human being who is not myself. It is the act of a writer's imagination that I set the most high.

Writing fiction is a good way to inhabit other minds, if not other lives.

To try and imagine that I'm another person is always going to be hard - whether I'm writing about a truck driver or someone who is gay, who's trans, who is of a different ethnicity or creed. But it would be boring if I always had to write about myself and my limited viewpoint.

One of the most difficult things in writing a novel or anything at all is to choose the point of view from which it's going to be told.

If I write a character, instead of looking from the outside, like maybe a journalist would, trying to describe them physically and figuring out what kind of things they might be interested in or have in their house, I don't really do it that way. I try to feel what it would be like to be inside this person, to be them.

To be a writer you should read, write and talk to people, hear their knowledge, hear their problems. Be a good listener. The rest will come.

What I try to do in writing any character is to put myself in his position.

I love writing in first person more than third. I have to basically suspend my own world. I don't exist. I'm just a conduit. So I can be eight years old. I can be the mother of a kid that you find out certain things I'm not going to say.