Jonathan Ames Quotes

I put a lot of myself into my characters when I write.

I don't know who said that novelists read the novels of others only to figure out how they are written. I believe it's true. We aren't satisfied with the secrets exposed on the surface of the page: we turn the book around to find the seams.

My writing process is such that a story will be in my head for awhile, and I'll start making notes on my computer. I create character sheets that include a character's past, fears, goals and ambitions.

I never base characters on real people. There are people who do that but I really don't know how to do it.

The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other.

I want to do some fiction writing, I've had some pretty good luck with short stories, I'd like to do a couple of larger things.

I'm always determined that as a novelist I'm going to go out there and research my characters very thoroughly before I start writing.

There are people who say they want to write novels. They think, 'I'll learn my craft on the romance novel.' If you don't love the genre, it's going to show, and it's not going to be a good book.

My writing of fiction comes under a very general heading of those teachers, critics, scholars who like to try their own hand once or twice in their lives.

I'm inspired by playwrights, novelists, poets: The value of language has been a lifelong passion of mine. I enjoy it. I'm good at it.

I've never been comfortable with the idea of using family and friends in stories. Which is why it takes me longer than something else. Because you make them up out of nothing. Doing that is harder.

You have to have empathy, knowledge and compassion for your characters if you're a writer.

I was writing novels in high school and apprenticed myself in a way both to Faulkner and to Hemingway.

Writers cannot simply have a go, imagining it's easier to produce a story than a novel because fewer words are required. Have a go by all means; be intrepid, but be equipped.

The good thing about writing a novel is that you're creating an imaginary world and can take a break when you need to.

If you are a good writer - and I think I am - you are able to handle any kind of group and imagine their lives.

I stopped writing short fiction early on - I was never really good at it, and I never liked the results. So I stopped trying to fit the material I was working with into these tidy little short fiction packages.

I write in a pretty straightforward way. I kind of sit down at page one and start writing.

I'm trying to get in the habit of, you know, picking up a book and learning how to write my feelings down, not my feelings but my thoughts, about things, and hopefully I'll moving toward the writing and directing thing soon.

And I think a good writer's gonna make it interesting. From the first paragraph it will all be interesting. Just work at it and work at it and work at it.

Most good fiction also has a character the writer seems to know more deeply than anyone can actually be known in life, but a few unusual writers can make something great without that.

I think all characters are facets of the writer. In a way, they have to be if you're going to write them convincingly.

A good writer is always a people watcher.

I write a ridiculous number of drafts. The characters change and grow through the drafting, and my understanding of them deepens. Creating characters in a novel is like shooting at clay pigeons and missing, and then missing more productively as the narrative continues.

The first time I can remember thinking that I would like to be a writer came in sixth grade, when our teacher Mrs. Crandall gave us an extended period of time to write a long story. I loved doing it. I started working seriously at becoming a writer when I was seventeen.