Victoria Aveyard Quotes

In fantasy and science fiction, world-building is an essential part of the story. But as a reader, I don't just want descriptions of food, clothing, and places. I want to understand the world to its core, through the eyes of those who live in it.

In the 'Dreamblood' books, I'm focusing more on what I like about epic fantasy: the layering and depth of tension; the chance to really delve into the minutia of an alternate society and its politics; a large cast of characters to love and hate.

The whole world of 'Game of Thrones' was realized with such detail, with directors and writers who really geeked out and really loved all the little bits of it.

It's hard out here for a fantasy writer, after all; there's all these 'rules' I'm supposed to follow, or the Fantasy Police might come and make me do hard labor in the Cold Iron Mines.

If you're creating a whole universe, even if it's a universe squeezed into a solar system, you have to use a little bit of sleight of hand.

I don't look at it as writing a book in a videogame universe. I look at it as writing for 'Halo', which for me, transcends being just a great video game. It's evolving into a whole new mythology.

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.

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

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.

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.

Novels are such mysterious and amorphous and tender things.

I read 'Sabella or The Blood Stone' by Tanith Lee, which was hugely influential to me. I love Tanith's writing. She's just really lyrical, beautiful use of language.

'Game of Thrones' is just incredible, what they pull off every week.

For the traditional fantasies, a lot more of my research comes from reading rather than doing. I like my worlds to feel real, so I do a lot of world building research.

Literature is always trying to show other parts of this immense universe in which we live. It's endless. I'm sure there will be other writers who will discover new worlds.

When you talk about fantasy, the usual problem is that whilst you've got the world of imagination, there are no controlling forces.

I'm not good at fantasy, no. I have been offered stuff, and I can't get my head around it.

Tolkien is as good as Dickens at sketching a scene.

Whenever you're writing a book or creating a movie or a game, your first task is to get the reader/audience/player to suspend disbelief, to buy into the logic and boundaries of your world, even though those boundaries might include things like dragons and magic. To do that, you need long threads - of history and culture.

It's the imagination that is involved in sci-fi, and fantasy is what draws me to it. Stories, everything.

A big part of the fun of working on Superman has been coming up with new characters and concepts to toss in, helping to design their costumes, things like that. And I spent ages coming up with the name 'Fortress of Solidarity,' so I want to get as much use out of it as I can!

If you are a novelist of a certain type of temperament, then what you really want to do is re-invent the world. God wasn't too bad a novelist, except he was a Realist.

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.

Building upon the world we created with 'Avatar' has been a rare and incredibly rewarding experience. In writing the new films, I've come to realize that 'Avatar's world, story and characters have become even richer than I anticipated, and it became apparent that two films would not be enough to capture everything I wanted to put on screen.

If fantasy is done well, it has both serious content in a literary fashion and is a really good read as well - and children and young adults won't suffer anything else.