Sara Shepard Quotes

Character is always my driving force. And to tell a good story and to provide an entertaining read.

When I read good stories, I want to write good stories too.

I try not to think too much about where my voice comes from. I'm channeling characters and emotion to come up with beautiful words that tell a story.

People think you have to go through something to write about it, and you absolutely do not. You can write about, like, a shoe. It's a story.

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.

For me, inspiration isn't a sort of spark which lights the fire of the story. It's more like a thread, one of many, which you can tease out of a story once it's written, if you feel so inclined.

As a writer, I absorb stories, allow them to churn within my own head and heart - often for years - until I find a way of telling them that fits both my time and temperament.

Storytelling is what lights my fire.

You're a reader as well as a writer, so write what you'd want to read.

I'm always saying that my books are not autobiographical because they're not. I can't choose any one scene and say, 'Oh, this is exactly what happened to me!' I just use little snippets of things as a starting point!

I got into writing because books and stories were always a big part of my life. I loved listening to them and then reading them, and I loved making them up.

At a certain moment, I decided to write a story. I had no more small children to tell them stories.

I want to work with anyone who's passionate about telling a story. I obviously have a list of people I really love, but it's a really long list.

I just knew there were stories I wanted to tell.

I've lost much of my heart and the spark or fire that once 'created,' or produced, the art of fiction.

So many stories, and to choose which ones to tell and how to tell them. The words, they will tap me on the shoulder and they will speak to me: 'Tell me! Tell me!' The stories choose me.

If you're a writer, you know that the stories don't come to you - you have to go looking for them. The old men in the lobby: that's where the stories were.

The characters in my stories all have quite loud lives in my head. It's a relief to get them on the page. Often they come from people I've noticed or overheard - but that is only a part of them. It's only by writing that I discover who these people really are.

My books come to me in images, and sometimes the image is at the beginning of the book, and sometimes it's simply a flash somewhere in the middle.

You see something, then it clicks with something else, and it will make a story. But you never know when it's going to happen.

For me, writing a novel is like having a dream. Writing a novel lets me intentionally dream while I'm still awake. I can continue yesterday's dream today, something you can't normally do in everyday life.

Writing is truly a creative art - putting word to a blank piece of paper and ending up with a full-fledged story rife with character and plot.

That's the most amazing thing about writing, whether it's in prose or comics: that you can create something from nothing, and suddenly they come to life, like they've always been there.

I think the reason I'm a writer is because first, I was a reader. I loved to read. I read a lot of adventure stories and mystery books, and I have wonderful memories of my mom reading picture books aloud to me. I learned that words are powerful.

I've always enjoyed making up stories, especially when I was bored and just sitting around. It got really serious after the children came along.