Robert Cormier Quotes

When I write, it's like watching a movie in my head.

When I'm writing, I'm creating the story and its character with words. I'm thinking about what the pictures will be like, but I never begin to sketch. The pictures are all in my head.

I try to imagine the scenes as I'm writing them as if I were watching them play like a film.

I won't usually just sit down to write. I'd have done it in my head already. I visualise a story just like a film strip running in my head. I guess that is also a reason why my books have such a visual element to them. And it's what I tell young writers: plan your story ahead.

When I start to write, I see my stories as a kind of movie. For instance, I ask myself, "What kind of opening do I want for this book?"

In a sense, the story, or poem or verse or whatever it is you're writing, you can kind of think of it as a kind of projectile. Imagine it is a kind of projectile which has been specially shaped to be aerodynamic, and that your target is the soft grey putty of the reader's brain.

I like it when I can hear directly from the writer: what they're seeing, what they're envisioning, and what their intention is.

As a writer, I always think about who my prototype actors are, in my brain. It's helpful, as a writer, to think about that.

When I sit down to write, I know everything I need to know... I start writing, and within 30 seconds or 60 seconds, I'm watching a movie. I'm not making this stuff up; the characters are acting it out, and I'm just writing it down.

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.

Before I write a novel, images float around in my head that work like icons - they are meaningless in themselves, but serve as reminders.

I have trouble writing if I can't picture how things are going to look.

When I am writing, I'm very much on the ground, on the same ground my characters are treading.

For me, the whole process involves envisioning this book in my head as I'm working.

My books always begin with a sentence and an image - not necessarily connected.

I write on a visual canvas, 'seeing' a scene in my thoughts before translating it into language, so I'm a visual junkie.

When I write, I see the pages in my head, not the words.

When I set out to write, I see it very visually. I almost feel like a reporter. I'm relating what I'm seeing and hearing, so it's kind of watching a play for me.

I let the images crowd my mind before I start writing a script.

I'm a very visual thinker, so the characters are running through my head, doing what they're doing when I'm writing them. And there'll be moments where I'll just kind of throw a look off to the side as if I'm talking to one of the characters. It's always been something that I've had with me since I was a little kid.

In the most self-protective of ways, I don't think about the reader when I'm writing - I just think about the story.

When you compose, it's like writing. You're like a writer. You just think all the time.

I have got a good imagination.

When I'm writing novels, even screenplays, it's never an actor I have in mind; it's always the version in my head of who the character is. Once somebody gets cast, I have to adjust a little bit to who they are.

I think I'm too lazy a writer to do something like historical fiction. You have to do so much research. I just write what I know.