Gilbert Hernandez Quotes

It has always been something I could do, and it may seem odd that in my case I seem to create an interesting narrative and frustrate the reader's opportunities to follow it at every step.

In a long story like 'Weathercraft,' it becomes kind of convoluted. It can become perhaps difficult to remember what led up to whatever point you're at. I worried a little bit about people being able to keep the shape of the story in their heads while they were reading it, and not wonder how they got wherever they were.

If you don't spend the time you need on developing characters and finding stories, complicated stories, the audience gets tired because they think they're seeing the same thing again and again.

I don't necessarily believe that stories need closure. I just believe they need a beginning, middle, and end, but the end doesn't have to prevent us from continuing to grapple with the story at hand. It ideally should demand that we remain engaged with the story.

I think one of the paradoxes of writing fiction is when people enjoy it, they want it to be real. So they look for connections.

To be memorable and to have dramatic impact, informational detail must function actively within the dynamic of a story.

I don't always write in order, so composing multi-book stories could get complicated.

I think that whenever a book is not a challenge, I'm telling the wrong story.

If you write in category, you write knowing there's a framework, there are reader expectations.

And I don't want to begin something, I don't want to write that first sentence until all the important connections in the novel are known to me. As if the story has already taken place, and it's my responsibility to put it in the right order to tell it to you.

Theme is great for people who like to approach stories that way, but it's an organizing principle that helps us write a story that has some weight; it's not something that all readers have to care about.

It's not that I ever sat down and outlined a trilogy, but I always have a sense of what size an idea is when I start it.

I hate even the idea of a synopsis. When stories are really working, when you're providing subtextual exploration and things that are deeply layered, you're obligated to not say things out loud.

It's got a lot more room for nuance and an assumption that people have started from the beginning. 'Bloodline' ends up being like a really good novel.

Although when I start a novel I know how it will begin and end, I like to let the people within the story take me on a journey between those points without having a fixed plan.

I've always enjoyed that kind of thing - thinking about the production of narrative and why it is that when we read a novel, we don't notice the fact that someone who might be very close-mouthed or tight-lipped is perfectly willing to tell us a story in 600 or 700 pages.

Some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end.

I write fast. But it takes me a while to get going. It's very important for me to see my whole plot. I have to see the end first because I like a surprise in the end. Which is why I let characters and plot gestate in my mind.

It's funny: I like being surprised as a reader, so it's difficult for me to spoil my own stuff.

In fiction, it's a big challenge to keep the reader in one place for so long.

If you do weave one-liners into a story, you have to have an overall story as well, otherwise it doesn't really count as narrative.

I try to write something that would interest anybody and keep them turning the page. You must have a plot and good storyline.

We think we've got great stories and characters that will lend themselves to great standalone experiences, and that's the way we're focusing on it.

I love writing picture books and story books because of the exciting, visual life that artists and illustrators give to them. And most of all, I love writing novels because of the inner, emotional journeys that they take me on. Hopefully, the reader comes with me!

It's a fantastic privilege to spend three or four hundred pages with a reader. You have time to go into certain questions that are painful or difficult or complicated. That's one thing that appeals to me very much about the novel form.