Amy Adams Quotes

I've always kind of ripped from real life to some degree or at least how I'm feeling in the moment. In fact, maybe that's really it. In anything I've ever written, all the characters sound like me, which I don't think is a bad thing.

In my early writing, all of my characters were exactly the same person. They all spoke the same, made the same types of jokes, reacted the same, etc. I think they were all just me in disguise.

I find it an easy way into writing pieces is to think what the character's voice is like, and start from there.

Your source material is the people you know, not those you don't know, but every character is an extension of the author's own personality.

When I'm writing, I try to have the mask of my character on as I'm walking through the world.

When it comes to the form the narrative will take, whether first person, third person, or Aunt Grace's cat, I usually find that the story tells me which voice it prefers, and that often changes as I go along. And in the end it really doesn't matter as long as the author can rig those voices all in harness to pull the same load.

Well see, I'm a good enough writer that not everybody in my books talks exactly like I do.

I believe that, like most writers, my personality comes through in the fiction. So in that respect my writing can't be like any other author's really.

It's hard to write an Evan Hunter novel because I really am starting from scratch. I'm assuming a new voice each time. The McBain voice is set.

If I claim I'm the opposite of my characters, then it'll just sound awful. But I tend to write the sort of things I'd never say because I'm not a very forceful person.

I can't write unless I've got the voice for a character.

I've written short stories from male perspectives before, and I've never had a problem with it as long as I've understood the character's emotions and motivations.

A novelist has a specific poetic license which also applies to his own life.

I'll agonize over sentences. Mostly because you're trying to create specific effects with sentences, and because there are a number of different voices in the book.

Perhaps, all writers walk such a line. In general - as we all do in our dreams - I believe I put something of myself into all the characters in my novels, male as well as female.

I have never successfully written in the third person. If there's a rhythm or a musicality that interests me, I become obsessed with the character, and I just have this need to spend time with him or her. Sometimes I'll be in the park playing ball, and I'll hear a kid say something that I've never heard before. Sometimes one word can set me off.

I'm here to get the story on to the page. It would be good to catch your attention, and I have to make you want to read on, and I suppose I prefer you don't actually think about the 'how' at all - the writing technique, the 'style', or even who it is that's putting this together.

I tend to describe recurring themes as being part of a writer's DNA - something so deeply embedded in us that even we don't notice it until we've written three or four books.

All writers are mimics, and I'm not interested in picking up somebody else's style or voice.

The more gifted and talkative one's characters are, the greater the chances of their resembling the author in tone or tint of mind.

People talk about writing convincing teenagers like it's a really clever thing to do, but it comes incredibly naturally to me. Which, of course, is slightly a worry.

I've met many, many writers who say they would never write about their family, never write about people they did not totally make up. But that is not the composition of my character.

I think every fiction writer, to a certain extent, is a schizophrenic and able to have two or three or five voices in his or her body. We seek, through our profession, to get those voices onto paper.

One of the most challenging aspects of writing a memoir is finding your own voice, and you should be very careful about being influenced by someone else's voice.

Remember to write for yourself, not for a market and give yourself time to develop your own style, your own voice. It takes a lifetime. Enjoy it!