Convincing Narrative Quotes

The very best way I can make any reader believe in the nuts and bolts of an art form... is to know the mechanics, to make the characters grounded in convincing detail.

It would be difficult to write a convincing ghost story set on a sunny day in a big city.

History is not a catalogue but...a convincing version of events.

The future depicted in a good SF story ought to be in fact possible, or at least plausible. That means that the writer should be able to convince the reader (and himself) that the wonders he is describing really can come true... and that gets tricky when you take a good, hard look at the world around you.

Earlier films were meant only for entertainment, but now filmmakers, who are products of these times, do not compromise on real stuff. That is why storytelling has become more convincing.

My goal was just to tell the unlikely story in a way that would feel as convincing as possible.

I do want to make it very convincing. And the best way to do that is to put most of it in dialogue.

A novel which persuades us of its truth is true however full of lies it may be

You must find the right voice (or voices) for the timbre that can convince a reader to give himself up to you.

All fiction is a process of imagining: whatever you write, in whatever genre or medium, your task is to make things up convincingly and interestingly and new.

If I am convinced with the storyline and get an opportunity to play a powerful role, I would.

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.

I can't write a novel without first really doing reporting. I don't even call it research; it's reporting. That process is very important to the granularity of my writing. I have to know what the reality is so I can be more convincing in the writing.

The best argument is that which seems merely an explanation.

The fact that technology has developed so much gives you the liberty to tell the stories, which were difficult to say earlier. It allows you to tell it more convincingly, more elaborately and more beautifully.

Partial knowledge is more triumphant than complete knowledge; it takes things to be simpler than they are, and so makes its theory more popular and convincing.

The belief may be too often mistaken, but the illusion of coming into direct contact with the past is intoxicating and persuasive, and can result in an interpretation that carries conviction. Sometimes confidence is all that's needed.

To make a book convincing, it's less important that the right tree be in the right place than that the characters are emotionally real.

Fantasy, if it's really convincing, can't become dated, for the simple reason that it represents a flight into a dimension that lies beyond the reach of time.

If you have written really well, people will swear that it happened to you.

When I create a false reality, I always try to create a plausible structure to help convince people.

Some of the most common pitfalls I see occur when authors don't check their privilege. Billions are living in a personal apocalypse right this second, so a little research and empathy can go a long way toward developing a convincing world.