Aimee Bender Quotes

Storytelling is about two things; it's about character and plot.

But everything written has style. The list of ingredients on the side of a cornflakes box has style. And everything literary has literary style. And style is integral to a work. How something is told correlates with - more - makes what's being told. A story is its style.

Any story that I can consider worth telling is one that you could tell in words.

In fiction, plenty do the job of conveying information, rousing suspense, painting characters, enabling them to speak. But only certain sentences breathe and shift about, like live matter in soil.

If I remember correctly, a writer is someone who wants to convey information. Language or writing is a code.

I like stories, and I really like words. So I like stories that rely on dialogue.

Dialogue is character and character is plot.

No matter how wonderful the story, it has to move on something, and that is language. The words that I use, the pace, the rhythm and cadences all need to be there. If they're not there, the story is like a boat that just sits there and doesn't move on the ocean.

Our task as fiction writers isn't just to report something that didn't really happen. We have to give what we write a sense of reality. The tool of our tradition is language.

Prose is all about embellishing and describing.

The most important aspect of any story, to me, is character.

I don't much believe in the idea of characters. I write with words, that is all. Whether those words are put in the mouth of this or that character does not matter to me.

When you are writing literary writing, you are communicating something subtextual with emotions and poetry. The prose has to have a voice; it's not just typing. It takes a while to get that voice.

Our biggest challenge is always story. The story is the ultimate thing you try to tackle.

A novelist can get by on story, but the poet has nothing but the words.

In many ways, it's easier to write a book. You have more latitude with structure, and you have the freedom to luxuriate within the internal lives and musings of your characters. But where a screenplay does not always demand great prose, a novel lives or dies by it.

Character and story are suggested by the voice in the words themselves.

I'm drawn to a good story, really, as I hope most people are. For me, it's the story that's going to stay with you eventually, not necessarily the genre. I go to watch a film because of the story, not because it was a Western or a comedy.

The rhetoric is the key to the character. It's the verbal music of the piece.

As a storyteller, you have the story that you tell, and you have the way you can tell it, and both are equally important.

A novel is not a rant.

I don't write a lot of fiction.

Eventually, I just want to write wavy little short stories.

I'm a fan of creative writing and telling stories.

Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.