Gail Simone Quotes

The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, familiar things new.

When I set out to write 'Sanctus,' all I wanted to do was craft a piece of high quality entertainment.

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

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.

There's no game plan when it comes to thinking up new characters; inspiration can come from anything - from a wig I've seen to an expression I've heard someone use.

Fiction is experimentation; when it ceases to be that, it ceases to be fiction.

What I like about writing a stand alone novel is you're starting with a fresh world and fresh characters. Part of what I love about writing is that journey of discovery where it's all new to me as well.

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.

I don't think any good book is based on factual experience. Bad books are about things the writer already knew before he wrote them.

I have no particular reader in mind, but a passionate desire to tell an honest, moving story.

To have frequent recourse to narrative betrays great want of imagination.

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

I never think of an entire book at once. I always just start with a very small idea. In 'Holes,' I just began with the setting; a juvenile correctional facility located in the Texas desert. Then I slowly make up the story, and rewrite it several times, and each time I rewrite it, I get new ideas, and change the old ideas around.

Stories develop from things I read and also from my own experiences and experiences of people I know.

One day I had an idea for a movie. Everything came after that.

I think the idea of creating a character from scratch, one that has not been done in a novel or an existing story, is immensely exciting, terrifying and ultimately rewarding.

I don't really set out to explore grand themes. I set out to tell a story. And one I have to be able to imagine right through.

I like coming up with new characters. Whether it's revamping an old character no one likes or just coming up with brand-new stuff, that's kind of what excited me as an artist.

As for most writers, language is vital for me: a writer's ability to render a fictional world - characters, landscape, emotions - into something original that alters or deepens my understanding of both literature and life.

In some sense, prose fiction is just a way of unlocking a space. If I can unlock the space, it comes out and it's vivid, I find that I care about it, and it's part of me.

The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power.

A lot of times as writers, you want to come up with the best possible story, and you bend it according to what you want to happen. I think one of the things that I always try to think about is what would really happen in a situation, what feels real.

If the novelist isn't surprised by where his book ends up, he or she probably hasn't written anything worth remembering.

Every creative story is different. And yet every creative story is the same: There was nothing, now there is something. It's almost like magic.

I'm a fan of characters wherever they come from. Truth be told, I wasn't a big comic book fan growing up. Maybe that helps me bring a fresh perspective to things because I'm not trying to match anything that's been done in the past.