R. L. Stine Quotes

I don't quite operate within the realist mode. I kind of push the stories out towards the cusp of believability - that's the area of interest for me.

Everything in a story should be credible.

I've been falsely accused of drawing too much from real life. But I am a petty thief - I take little things. And, I mean, I can hardly write 10 words before I start to make things up. I start to invent, because that's what I want to do. I'm running away to an invented place.

The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.

I'm writing about real things. Real people. Real characters. You have to believe what I write about is true or you wouldn't pay any attention at all. Sometimes it's me, or a composite of me and other people. Sometimes it's not me at all.

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.

Ultimately, in my mind, that's what I'm trying to do with my fiction; I'm trying to transport my reader into a different world.

I have a longing for fiction, to try to believe in it and to disappear into it.

We're telling a story. And the demands of that are different from the demands of a documentary. The audience must believe in order to keep faith in the story.

Fiction has to be plausible. All history has to do is happen.

They say truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, but there's such a thing as believability when you're writing a novel.

This is the beauty of fiction. We may not like these characters, but we inhabit them.

It's not easy for me as a writer to suspend my disbelief in a fantastical zone. I can do it. But it's more natural for me to write stories that are comic. Or hopefully comic.

I want my fiction to seem real.

The only difference between reality and fiction is that fiction needs to be credible.

I want to make the world real. I have to be able to believe that it could happen. I can't put Pegasus in my stories because horses can't fly. It's just a quirk in my brain.

When I put magic into a book - whether it's a wizard or a crusty old werewolf - I'm asking a reader to swallow a huge leap that is counter to everything he or she knows. An extra big helping of reality makes that leap go down a lot easier.

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.

It's into the same bag as E.T. and Yoda, wherein you're trying to create something that people will actually believe, but it's not so much a symbol of the thing, but you're trying to do the thing itself.

Novels are make-believe and play for adults.

First of all, writing at best - certainly fiction writing - more and more I think is magic.

I have heard Science Fiction and Fantasy referred to as the fiction of ideas, and I like that definition, but it's the mainstream public that chooses my books for the most part.

I think that writers of literary fiction would do well to read more books for children.

I loved all ghost stories. So I guess it was only a matter of time before I wrote one.

I think one of the paradoxes of writing fiction is when people enjoy it, they want it to be real. So they look for connections.