Teresa Nielsen Hayden Quotes

I didn't want readers to have to make allowances for what they couldn't see, but to be able to say to themselves that the fabric of the magic detailed was perfectly believable.

With any sci-fi fantasy storytelling, you must have rules be very clear, otherwise you lose people, like 'OK, they can fly; now they can't fly.'

Sometimes I read a script and it's obvious from early on that it's one where the suspension of disbelief has to develop strongly from page one. Some are more reality-based.

I think the most important technique is to ground everything, to make everything - to make fantasy world grounded and relatable, just great characters.

I like novelists who can create other interesting worlds.

If your characters are two-dimensional and your plot uncompelling, it won't matter how incredibly detailed and believable your fantasy world might be.

My stories do have plot. They're not just scattered language; they're controlled, toward an end.

It's rather useless to write a gripping narrative with nothing in it but climate change because novels are always about people even if they purport to be about rabbits or robots.

Writing can be fun. I think the challenge is to convey interesting things in accessible ways, and that's what I aim to do in books.

World-building is my favorite pastime, so with me, I'm always about reining myself in. I don't want to lose too much of the mystery by hammering every detail to death. I did fiddle with lots of maps for 'Glass Sword,' as the second installment sees Mare, Cal and company traveling throughout their country, and that's always fun for me.

As for 'Great Expectations', it is up there for me with the world's greatest novels, not least as it vindicates plot as no other novel I can think of does, since what there is to find out is not coincidence or happenstance but the profoundest moral truth.

I would love to focus on writing books that were not just about issues.

Part of the fun of writing is having messages. Without them, it's all gunfights and car chases, and none of it means anything.

You spend so much time as a writer telling straight and linear stories.

I could make up characters till the cows came home. Plot's what hard. Very hard.

You can do all of the world-building you want; at the end of the day, what's important is the heart and the drive of the story and the heart and the drive of the characters.

I may have a story idea but everything starts moving when I am able to see my characters clearly. They then organically lead or respond to the story or the universe I want to create.

When we talk about novels, we don't often talk about imagination. Why not? Does it seem too first grade? In reviews, you read about limpid prose, about the faithful reproduction of consciousness, about moral heft, but rarely about the power of pure, unadulterated imagination.

I suppose I'm pulled towards fiction because I really like the freedom it gives me.

I tend to really enjoy being swept up in fiction. I love a good story and I admire fiction authors.

People are interested if you tell stories well and relevantly.

A good story feels both surprising and inevitable, fresh and familiar.

A good story is like a bitter pill, with the sugar coating inside of it.

I just like that balance of the real and the fantastical because as a reader and consumer of stories and fantasy, I always want to feel like I can find that world.

You just have to go with a good story and a script that you like and people that you like to work with.