Tom King Quotes

I'll usually see a scene in my head, playing like a movie trailer. After I've written that scene, everything takes off from there.

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

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

When it comes time to write the book itself I'll shut the lights out, picture the scene I'm about to write then close my eyes and go at it. Yes, I can touch type.

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

The writer can choose what he writes about but he cannot choose what he is able to make live.

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

Writers divide fairly cleanly into those who only work through what they hear and those who are more visual. I am the latter, where I lie down on my office floor and play scenes through my head to - cinematically, several times with different elements - to see what works. I can't write a scene until I can see it.

Many people have told me that my books read like novels. Perhaps this is because, when I write, I feel I am really there, so strong is my feeling for my subject. On occasion, I have been so moved by the events I have been describing that I have felt like crying.

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

When I write, I imagine places more than people.

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.

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.

When I write, I never think of segments as chapters; I think of them as scenes. I always visualize them in my mind. Then I try to get the scene down on paper as closely as I can. That's the one thing that readers don't see - what you have in your mind. The reader can only see what you get on the page.

I have always used emotion as a writing tool. That goes back to me being on the stage.

All fiction becomes autobiographical when the author has true talent.

I prefer writing originals.

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

I write poetry anyway and have for years and years. For me, putting fiction and poetry together is like the best of both worlds.

In my younger days, I was trying to write sophisticated prose and fantastic stories.

I have friends who are capable of writing a very rough draft and then going back and embroidering - they're sort of the cathedral builders of fiction. I never really know what I'm doing, and all my pleasure's on the level of the line.

Of course, all writers draw upon their personal experiences in describing day-to-day life and human relationships, but I tend to keep my own experiences largely separate from my stories.

The only thing I know anything about are my own fantasies and anxieties. I don't trust my eyes. I consider myself to be a short-story writer.

There are probably writers who are much more visual than I am and some who are less. I like to think of myself as a happy medium.