Lisa Lutz Quotes

There is no way of writing stories that I haven't done.

I think you can spread yourself across any number of genres when you're a writer as long as you have a deep, abiding love for each of them.

The stories that are out and the things that have been published are a sample of my interests. There are genres and sub-genres that I haven't waded into but have wanted to, or have waded into in other places but never actually written.

I loved writing the Spellman novels, but I never had any plan to only write in one genre.

A writer must experiment with genres. Otherwise, it is a restriction on the craft.

Every now and then I'll do little things, a short story or something, that doesn't have any fantastical elements, but mostly I like the power of playing God and I like to imagine things.

The essayist has to follow a certain intellectual pattern. The novelist has the advantage of using fantasy, of being subjective.

I don't write to a genre.

I truly believe that writing is a continuum - so the different genres and forms are simply stops along the same continuum. Different ideas that need to be expressed sometimes require different forms for the ideas to float better. I don't write essays as often as I should.

I get to use fiction as a way to work out my thinking and to delight readers in the process. I can't think of any deal that's better for me, and I'm always so grateful that readers have indulged me as I argue with myself in my stories.

As a writer of fiction, you don't ever want to limit the characters you create to the life you've lived. That's insanity to me.

My job, in general, is nonfiction, so writing fiction was liberating. If you can't find the answer to something, you just make it up!

I love writing fiction because I can totally lose myself and I get to make up the rules of the world that I'm writing.

When I finally got tired of arguing with her and decided to write a novel as if I was some kind of formulaic, genre writing drone, just to prove to her how awful it would be, I wrote the first book of the Dresden Files.

I love writing fiction - you can take just what you want from a place, and leave the rest.

I never think about genre when I work. I've written fantasy, science fiction, supernatural fiction, and am now working on a suspense novel. Genres are mostly useful as a marketing tool, and to help booksellers known where to shelve a book.

Writing is writing, and stories are stories. Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and non-fiction. And even there, who can be sure?

It's hard to do fiction and nonfiction simultaneously.

I had always written. I had written stories and poems. Then I started writing plays.

There are many reasons why novelists write, but they all have one thing in common - a need to create an alternative world.

Occasionally people ask me how it is I write different types of things, and my answer to that is it's very natural. You get bored writing one kind of thing all the time.

Writing a novel was completely awesome because parts of it could suck and I could throw them away. I didn't have to know the ending until I got there.

Playing with different genres and perspectives and ways of telling stories is one of the perks of being a novelist, but at the same time, I want precision. And in order to be precise about stuff, you have to get personal. Symbolism is very boring.

The way I usually put it is that as an SF writer, I'm never required to be right.

I used to be a freelance journalist, so I had to write fast, but I always found writing nonfiction constraining. I like the freedom of fiction, where I get to invent everything, and tidy, conclusive endings are within my control.