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Novel Quotes
I was pleasantly surprised with 'Salvage.' I went to Australia and New Zealand for the novel and met a lot of people who had experienced the earthquakes in Christchurch. They responded very strongly to the book because they had been through these natural disasters and were trying to figure out how to rebuild.
Jesmyn Ward
Natural
Book
People
Met
Natural Disasters
Rebuild
Pleasantly
Earthquakes
Out
Strongly
Through
Had
New
Disasters
Because
How
Were
Surprised
Been
Lot
Australia
Very
Salvage
Trying
Experienced
New Zealand
Figure
Who
Novel
Zealand
One of the ways my first novel failed was that I was too in love with my characters.
Jesmyn Ward
Love
First
Too
Ways
Characters
Failed
Novel
I try to think of the social function of fiction as drawing the individual toward larger social and political questions. But I'm also very comfortable in saying that my novel - any novel - doesn't matter as much as larger questions of how we can see justice done.
Jess Row
Saying
Justice
Political
Matter
Try
Think
Drawing
See
Individual
Toward
Also
Comfortable
How
Questions
Very
Any
Done
Fiction
Social
Much
Novel
Function
Larger
I think I would explode in flames of irony if I were to option an idea that I was satirizing in a novel.
Jess Walter
Think
Would
Idea
Were
Option
Irony
Flames
Explode
Novel
I don't know that any writing comes easily, but I certainly get more immersed in novels. I don't think the routine is any different, but fiction tends to pull me further away from my life. When I'm deep in a novel, I don't pay bills and I walk around in one shoe, drinking two-day old coffee, and calling my kids by the wrong names.
Jess Walter
Life
Me
Writing
Walk
Old
Coffee
My Life
Drinking
Pay
Think
Further
Kids
Easily
Immersed
More
Tends
Wrong
Names
Know
Calling
Around
Shoe
Get
Any
Different
Fiction
Certainly
Deep
Bills
Novel
Novels
Away
Routine
Pull
My cure for writer's block is to step away from the thing I'm stuck on, usually a novel, and write something totally different. Besides fiction, I write poetry, screenplays, essays and journalism. It's usually not the writing itself that I'm stuck on, but thing I'm trying to write. So I often have four or five things going at once.
Jess Walter
Writing
Once
Besides
Totally
Something
Poetry
Stuck
Write
Writer
Step
Journalism
Block
Itself
Five
Cure
Trying
Essays
Going
Often
Different
Fiction
Screenplays
Novel
Away
Thing
Things
Four
I pretty much drink a cup of coffee, write in my journal for a while, and then sit at a computer in my office and torture the keys. My one saving grace as a writer is that, if I'm having trouble with the novel I'm writing, I write something else, a poem or a short story. I try to avoid writer's block by always writing something.
Jess Walter
Writing
Grace
Try
Coffee
Trouble
Sit
Saving
Saving Grace
Else
Keys
Torture
Pretty
Something
Poem
Something Else
Having
Drink
Computer
Write
Writer
Journal
Always
Block
Cup
Office
Short
Short Story
Story
While
Then
Much
Avoid
Novel
Let's get right to it: On page 5 of Paul Murray's dazzling new novel, 'Skippy Dies,'... Skippy dies. If killing your protagonist with more than 600 pages to go sounds audacious, it's nothing compared with the literary feats Murray pulls off in this hilarious, moving and wise book.
Jess Walter
Wise
Book
Hilarious
Nothing
More
Feats
New
Dazzling
Protagonist
Audacious
Sounds
Go
Off
Than
Get
Dies
Literary
Moving
Paul
Page
Pages
Your
Novel
Compared
Right
I think screenwriting gave me more of an affinity for plot - my first novel, 'Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,' doesn't have a very sophisticated roadmap. But screenwriting required me to learn a higher level of plottiness, and I tried to bring that to 'The Haters.'
Jesse Andrews
Me
Haters
Girl
First
Think
Gave
Plot
Tried
More
Higher
Higher Level
Sophisticated
Learn
Affinity
Very
Dying
Screenwriting
Required
Novel
Level
Earl
Bring
There was a time, after I earned my graduate degree and before I sold my first novel, when it looked like I might have to get an office job.
Jesse Kellerman
Time
Job
Degree
First
Before
Earned
Sold
Like
Looked
Office
Get
Graduate
Graduate Degree
After
Might
Novel
I'm sick of the foodies who need every morsel that goes into their mouth to be a Picasso painting, a Giacometti sculpture, a Proust novel, evoking the world with each crumb.
Jessi Klein
World
Mouth
Painting
Every
Sick
Evoking
Picasso
Crumb
Proust
Goes
Sculpture
Who
Novel
Each
Need
I read everything. I'll read a John Grisham novel, I'll sit and read a whole book of poems by Maya Angelou, or I'll just read some Mary Oliver - this is a book that was given to me for Christmas. No particular genre. And I read in French, and I read in German, and I read in English. I love to see how other people use language.
Jessye Norman
Love
Christmas
Me
Book
People
Language
Sit
Other
Everything
John
See
Some
John Grisham
Angelou
Poems
Given
Mary
Particular
French
Genre
Read
How
German
Maya Angelou
Just
Use
English
Whole
Novel
Oliver
I always think first about the nature of the story. When I had the idea for 'The Namesake,' I felt that it had to be a novel - it couldn't work as a story.
Jhumpa Lahiri
Work
Nature
First
Think
About
Had
Idea
Felt
Always
Story
Novel
I love stories. But I don't distinguish so much between a short story and a novel. Personally, when I sit down to read a novel or a Chekhov story, I'm seeking the same thing: I'm seeking that same rich portrayal of life in words.
Jhumpa Lahiri
Life
Love
Words
Sit
Same Thing
Rich
Down
Distinguish
Seeking
Between
Read
Chekhov
Same
Short
Love Stories
Stories
Short Story
Story
Personally
Much
Novel
Thing
Portrayal
When I am experiencing a complex story or novel, the broader planes, and also details, tend to fall away.
Jhumpa Lahiri
Fall
Broader
Complex
Details
Tend
Also
Am
Experiencing
Story
Planes
Novel
Away
My parents came from Calcutta. They arrived in Cambridge, much like the parents in my novel. And I found myself sort of caught between the world of my parents and the world they had left behind and still clung to, and also the world that surrounded me at school and everywhere else, as soon as I set foot out the door.
Jhumpa Lahiri
Myself
Me
World
School
Parents
Else
Everywhere
Out
Foot
Had
Soon
Between
Like
Also
Sort
Caught
Still
Cambridge
Came
Arrived
Left
Surrounded
Behind
Door
Much
Novel
Found
Set
Building a dollhouse is a lot like writing a novel because you are God of the Universe.
Jill McCorkle
God
You
Writing
Building
Universe
Like
Because
Lot
Novel
You can't deduce the personality of the potter from the pots. It's a thingy you've made and offered to somebody else for their use, and, believe me, a novel is like that. It's a made thing and ought not to contain a direct self-expression of the writer.
Jill Paton Walsh
Me
You
Personality
Made
Somebody
Believe
Else
Ought
Direct
Pots
Potter
Writer
Contain
Like
Self-Expression
Offered
Use
Deduce
Novel
Thing
But I always seem to finish a book and then think, oh God, I've got to pay a tax bill, so I'd better write a novel, so I tend not to stop and learn word processing.
Jilly Cooper
God
Book
Better
Word
Pay
Think
Seem
Finish
Tend
Write
Learn
Always
Got
Oh
Oh God
Stop
Tax
Processing
Then
Bill
Novel
If I talk about my father's funeral, as I did when I was promoting the last novel, 'Being Dead,' I'm not going to tell any lies, but there are certain things I'm not going to tell you, and I'm certainly not going to tell my grief.
Jim Crace
You
Grief
Father
Tell
Lies
Promoting
About
Talk
Dead
Did
Any
Going
Being
Certain
Certain Things
Certainly
Novel
Things
Last
Funeral
Even though the method of 'Harvest' was a historical novel, its intentions were that of a modern novel. I'm asking you to think about land being seized in Brazil by soya barons. It's also a novel about immigration.
Jim Crace
You
Immigration
Brazil
Think
Though
Harvest
About
Seized
Also
Method
Were
Historical
Modern
Intentions
Being
Land
Asking
Even
Novel
I don't feel tentative when I start to write. I've usually thought about a novel or novella for several years and created a lot of juice and density and energy by that time so by the time I get ready to go, I just let 'er fling, you know.
Jim Harrison
Time
You
Thought
Energy
Several
About
Write
Feel
Know
Ready
Go
Juice
Years
Lot
Density
Get
Just
Created
Fling
Novel
Start
By The Time
'Dexter,' while the pilot shares moments with the novel that created the character of Dexter, they completely abandoned the book from that moment on.
Jim Rash
Character
Book
Pilot
Abandoned
Shares
Dexter
While
Created
Moment
Moments
Novel
I used to publish these stories in 32-page comics, and I would either do short stories or break the long ones up into chunks so there would be some variety inside the comic. But since then, people have been doing more and more long, standalone works, and the term 'graphic novel' has sort of become the codified term now.
Jim Woodring
People
Long
Become
Publish
Chunks
Would
Would-Be
Inside
Some
More
More And More
Variety
Since
Term
Sort
Comic
Comics
Doing
Been
Up
Short
Stories
Break
Short Stories
Either
Then
Used
Graphic
Works
Novel
Now
All my friends who wanted to write had got nowhere trying to write the great European novel. So I deliberately steered clear of that and set out to write something story-led.
Jo Nesbo
Great
All My Friends
Out
Something
Deliberately
Steered
Write
Had
Clear
Got
Friends
Trying
Wanted
Who
European
Novel
Nowhere
Set
Many Scandinavian writers who had made their name in literary fiction felt they wanted to have a go at the crime novel to show they could compete with the best. If Salman Rushdie had been Norwegian, he would definitely have written at least one thriller.
Jo Nesbo
Best
Crime
Made
Definitely
At Least One
Scandinavian
Would
Thriller
Could
Writers
Had
He
Written
Name
Felt
Least
Go
Been
Norwegian
Fiction
Wanted
Literary
Literary Fiction
Show
Who
Many
Novel
Compete
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