Authorial Discretion Quotes

Everyone who sits on a sofa watching 'Match of the Day' is a top soccer expert, as you know. So if you start to worry about such people reading your story and saying, 'That'd never happen' you're going to freeze up. You're writing fiction, and your characters can do whatever you need them to do.

Just as I know the usual rules of law enforcement, I also know the exceptions and invoke those frequently. I don't feel a need to bog the reader down with an explanation of why the procedures are realistic, as long as I know that there is, in fact, an explanation.

It's extremely seldom that anybody wants me to change what I've written about them. Generally I portray them in a good light, if they're friends.

There was a kind of infiniteness to fiction that I found sort of... disconcerting. I remember having these really panicky thoughts, like, 'I can make this person say anything. I could make him do anything! I could put a jetpack onto his back and shoot him into space!' I don't like this feeling of having no rules.

The great thing about fiction is that you can start off by telling the truth, then start making stuff up like crazy whenever you feel like it.

Either a writer doesn't want to talk about his work, or he talks about it more than you want.

I have no policy, for or against: only a personal style. Which is to say, I use them when I think it's appropriate to; for example, an internal monologue by a locquacious and verbose narrator is more likely to be larded with adverbs than an exchange of instant messages between cops at a crime scene.

Your freedom as a writer is not freedom of expression in the sense of wild blurting; you may not let rip. It is life at its most free, if you are fortunate enough to be able to try it, because you select your materials, invent your task, and pace yourself.

I think, when you are writing non-fiction, you feel there's an obligation to get it absolutely right, so all your factual details have to be, have, you know, to go through a long list of them and tick them. I'm not saying that's not important in fiction, but I think you have a bit more leeway; you can suit yourself.

There are no rules in writing. There are useful principles. Throw them away when they're not useful. But always know what you're throwing away.

I've written a lot about southern California, but I don't use the same characters. Leave the people in the songs in the songs, is my philosophy.

I always make a point of keeping the most pleasant-sounding name for the murderer. As he or she is bound to come to an unpleasant end, it seems the very least the author can do.

I always try to stay as quiet as possible about a book until it's finished.

I got history solidly under my belt, reading Russian history and biographies. I couldn't change the facts. I could only play with how the people might have responded to the facts of their lives.

Writing fiction, there are no limits to what you write as long as it increases the value of the paper you are writing on.

I don't write books inadvertently.

When writing fiction, you only have to know enough to be convincing on the page. I mean really convincing, of course - but you don't need academic depth.

Novelists never have to footnote.

The less a writer discusses his work and himself the better. The master chef slaughters no chickens in the dining room; the doctor writes prescriptions in Latin; the magician hides his hinges, mirrors, and trapdoors with the utmost care.

I have assiduously avoided calling my books novels.

I do write about race a lot, but I don't think writers - of any shade or background or whatever - have to write about certain subjects.

When sex is necessary for the plot of a book, or a character development, then I don't shy away from it. Why should I?

When I write a novel, every word is mine. I welcome suggestions from my editor, but in the end, I make all the final decisions.

The novelist has permission to do whatever she chooses to supercharge whatever's interesting in her story. This is also known as freedom.

Something about writing needs a sort of distance not to be involved as a writer - just something that makes it easier to write. You have to make choices all the time - what to tell and what not to tell.