Crafting a Narrative Quotes

The great thing about writing compared to life is getting to tie things up.

Most people yearn to contribute, make the world a better place and have success.... all at the same time... Make sure to give your business a background, a mission and a story. That might be the most important step part of any venture. And remember, giving may be the best investment you ever make.

The image of a bedsheet ghost standing all alone in an empty house was something I was obsessed with. I really wanted to make a film about that image, and I was waiting for the right story to come along. When it did, I did my best to honor that image.

How many times have you opened a book, read the first few sentences and made a snap decision about whether to buy it? When it's your book that's coming under this casual-but-critical scrutiny, you want the reader to be instantly hooked. The way to accomplish this is to create compelling opening sentences.

At a certain point my novels set. They set just as hard as that jam jar. And then I know they are finished.

I just want to create my own history.

You know, there's that temptation in interviews to make yourself sound - well, to give yourself a bit of mystery.

I've written quite a few things, but I've put it on hold for now to see how everything fits together. Then I'll approach it and write specifically to see how the pieces fit in the puzzle.

There's something about the idea of writing, and thinking about writing as a form of prayer - the way as a writer you call out into the world and throw your words into the world. You're not praying to a god, but you're almost conjuring a reader to arrive. That's what books do: they're an invitation to readers.

Making a movie is like chipping away at a stone. You take a piece off here, you take a piece off there and when you're finished, you have a sculpture. You know that there's something in there, but you're not sure exactly what it is until you find it.

My mission was always intended to be slightly outside the public eye, because that makes me appear more interesting than I really am. A lot of people don't realise that merely by staying away, you can create a myth.

I believe in books that do not go to a ready-made public. I'm looking for readers I would like to make. To win them, to create readers rather than to give something that readers are expecting. That would bore me to death.

It's like you take these great actors and put them in an aquarium of life and just watch them swim. That's what makes editing tough because you get all these beautiful, unplanned moments.

To take a few nouns, and a few pronouns, and adverbs and adjectives, and put them together, ball them up, and throw them against the wall to make them bounce. That's what Norman Mailer did. That's what James Baldwin did, and Joan Didion did, and that's what I do - that's what I mean to do.

I wanted to write history rather than participate in it.

The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.

It took me ten years to write a proper story. I floundered about trying to shape something, counting on the 'feeling' I had as I wrote, only to discover upon rereading my work that the feeling had disappeared, and what remained was an empty shell.

If you sing beautifully about nothing, no one will listen. If you sing badly about great stuff, no one will listen. Ideas are everywhere, but my theory is that a writer doesn't just think of an idea: they perform them.

You find most of the interesting stories are the ones that are slightly harder to get made.

Drawing a good picture is like telling a really good lie - the key is in the incidental detail.

The author always loads his dice, but he must never let the reader see that he has done so.

Anyone who says that writing for children or teens is easier than writing for adults has never tried it, because they are so much more critical than adults. You cannot get anything past them.

I rewrite a lot until I get the rhythm and story right on the page.