Michelle Paver Quotes

As a writer, you write the book, you give it to your editor, it's copy edited, it's published, it's thrown out there, and then there's a response.

The author may not interpret. But he must tell why and how he wrote his book.

I read my books aloud before they were published.

A novelist can never be his own reader, except when he is ridding his manuscript of syntax errors, repetitions, or the occasional superfluous paragraph.

I know very well that one cannot become an author by just writing a book.

I worked on 'Always and Forever, Lara Jean' for a few months before I breathed a word of it my editor or agent.

If getting a contract was relatively straightforward, writing fiction was far harder than I could have imagined, and there were moments during the long and torturous edit process when it seemed that 'Zulu Hart,' the first of the trilogy, would never be fit for public consumption.

I began to ask two questions while I was reading a book that excited me: not only what was going to happen next, but how is this done? How is it that these words on the page make me feel the way I'm feeling? This is the line of inquiry that I think happens in a child's mind, without him even knowing he has aspirations as a writer.

I get so used to working with writers that my prime occupation is development.

I suspect there are two kinds of novelists. Those who have a point of view and have something to say and then write a novel in order to say that thing, and those of us who write the book in order to find out what we think about that thing.

I love 'Memory Keeper's Daughter,' but in some ways I think 'The Lake of Dreams' is a stronger book. I was able to tell the story I wanted to tell. That's all you can ever do as a writer. From there on you have no control over it.

Writing a novel is actually searching for victims. As I write I keep looking for casualties. The stories uncover the casualties.

I want to write a best-selling book.

I don't think any novelist should be concerned with literature.

I think everything we do, on one level or another, as writers, most of our writing is informed by our world view.

I just do the best I can and write something interesting, to tell stories in an interesting way and move forward from there.

As an editor, I read Charlotte Rogan's amazing debut novel, 'The Lifeboat,' when it was still in manuscript. I read it in one night, and I really wanted my company to publish it, but we lost it to another house. It's such a wonderful combination of beautiful writing and suspenseful storytelling.

As a writer, I'm always aware of the fact that there are so many books out there.

When the characters are really alive before their author, the latter does nothing but follow them in their action, in their words, in the situations which they suggest to him.

I find inspiration in many places. Sometimes music gives me the kernel of a story. Sometimes it's dissatisfaction with the plot of a movie or a book that gets me thinking. Sometimes it's love of a movie or book.

There isn't any distinction between a reader and a writer - reading is so much a part of it.

Don't let anyone discourage you from writing. If you become a professional writer, there are plenty of editors, reviewers, critics, and book buyers to do that.

I have heard of novels started in the middle, at the end, written in patches to be joined together later, but I have never felt the slightest desire to do this.

Becoming an author changes your attitude too. Once you see where books come from, and how they're made, they never seem quite as sacred again.

Many fiction writers write for the critics or for themselves; they forget the common reader. I never do. I don't think journalism clashes with my fiction; on the contrary, it helps enormously.