I never read detective novels. I started out in graduate school writing a more serious book. Right around that time I read 'The Day of the Jackal' and 'The Exorcist'. I hadn't read a lot of commercial fiction, and I liked them.
I'll bet you $10 right now that there are an awful lot of literary writers who started a long time ago and now they find themselves in this place where secretly they feel trapped. And you know what they really read for fun? They read crime fiction.
Fiction leaves us so much work to do, allows the individual so much input; you have to see, you have to hear, you have to taste the madeleine, and while you are seemingly passive in your chair, you have to travel.
[Marsellus is telling Butch to take a dive] Marsellus: The night of the fight, you may feel a slight sting. That's pride fucking with you. Fuck pride. Pride only hurts, it never helps.
The Wolf: You see that, young lady? Respect. Respect for one's elders gives character. Raquel: I have character. The Wolf: Just because you are a character doesn't mean that you have character.
Jules: I hate to shatter your ego, but this is not the first time I've had a gun pointed at me. Pumpkin: You don't take your fucking hand off that case, it'll be your last.
Vincent: You know what they put on French fries in Holland instead of ketchup? Jules: What? Vincent: Mayonnaise. Jules: Goddamn. Vincent: I've seen 'em do it, man. They fuckin' drown 'em in that shit.
Jules: I'll just walk the earth. Vincent: What'cha mean walk the earth? Jules: You know, walk the earth, meet people... get into adventures. Like Caine from "Kung Fu."
Vincent: Get her the shot! Lance: I will if you let me. Vincent: I ain't fuckin' stopping you! Lance: Well, then quit talking to me, talk to her. Vincent: Get the shot!
When you're writing non-fiction, you go as far as you can go, and then ethically you have to stop. You can't go. You can't suppose. You can't imagine. And I think there's something in human nature that wants to finish the story.
My fiction is almost always inspired by a character's need or desire to rise above him- or herself. No one is perfect and some of us have much adversity in our lives; it is those people who struggle to rise above their nature or background that I fin...
Fiction is an elemental force, which has the power to shape reality in its own image - or images, I should say - because reality, like light, exists not only as a single point or particle, but also as an array of possibilities.
I didn't know anything about romance novels until a friend suggested that I try writing one. After I read a few, I realized that my favorite part of fiction had always been the relationship aspect.
There's more to research than just looking up facts. Eventually, you have to make subjective calls. If you're writing a science fiction novel, there's probably some speculative technology in it. You'll have to decide how to project existing technolog...
One of the strangest features of string theory is that it requires more than the three spatial dimensions that we see directly in the world around us. That sounds like science fiction, but it is an indisputable outcome of the mathematics of string th...
When we see the shadow on our images, are we seeing the time 11 minutes ago on Mars? Or are we seeing the time on Mars as observed from Earth now? It's like time travel problems in science fiction. When is now; when was then?
If you don't care about science enough to be interested in it on its own, you shouldn't try to write hard science fiction. You can write like Ray Bradbury and Harlan Ellison as much as you want.
I don't think the scientific method and the science fictional method are really analogous. The thing about them is that neither is really practiced very much, at least not consciously. But the fact that they are methodical does relate them.
I'm reluctant to get involved in science fiction, because I feel like I've done it and done it well, so unless something comes along that I feel has the potential to do something even more interesting, it seems a shame to sort of re-live something in...
You know, every year 'Torchwood' has become something a little different than it was before. It's still sci-fi, but it doesn't just deal with spaceships and aliens all the time, because we've done that. Our science fiction is more psychological.
I gravitated to Judy Blume early on. 'Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing' was my favorite, with a realistic and relatable protagonist in Peter Hatcher. When I reached the fourth grade, I made the leap to science fiction and never looked back.
