Authorial Freedom Quotes

I tend to plan as I write. And I want to leave myself open and the character open to keep on going until it seems to be the time to stop.

Writers never feel comfortable having labels attached to them, however accurate they are.

The transition from unknown to known-in-publishing has been empowering but also challenging. It's an honor to know that people actually want to know what I think about certain issues, but I also have to be careful about what I say or, rather, how I say it. The Internet is forever, y'all.

Rules such as "Write what you know," and "Show, don't tell," while doubtlessly grounded in good sense, can be ignored with impunity by any novelist nimble enough to get away with it. There is, in fact, only one rule in writing fiction: Whatever works, works.

The good thing about writing fiction is that you can get back at people.

I contend that in the kind of nonfiction I write, and that other people also pursue, anything is permissible provided the reader knows what you're taking liberties with.

Writing is a form of licensed madness.

The art of fiction is freedom of will for your characters.

It's harder to write in the third person but the advantage is you move around better.

You're talking to someone, to a reader, and you get to express in the way you want to. And you get to play with it. It's kind of like acting, but it's on paper.

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

I always write about my own experiences, whether I've had them or not.

Particularly as a writer, it is my job to ignore social critics, or the response that social critics might have when it comes to the opinions of my characters, the way they talk, or anything that can happen to them.

I've quit writing screenplay [adaptations]. It's too much work. I don't look at writing a novel as work, because I only have to please myself. I have a good time sitting here by myself, thinking up situations and characters, getting them to talk - it's so satisfying. But screenwriting's different. You might think you're writing for yourself, but there are too many other people to please.

Whenever you write for someone else, you're always aware - sometimes overtly, other times at an almost cellular, subliminal level - of the rules about what you can and can't do.

As much as I'm drawn to writing about teenage girls, I like the idea of having the freedom to branch out and write about different ages, for different ages.

As a writer, I always tend to take the liberty and the great artistic luxury of a composite form of writing.

At the evident risk of seeming ridiculous, I want to begin by saying that I have tried for much of my life to write as if I was composing my sentences to be read posthumously. I hope this isn't too melodramatic or self-centred a way of saying that I attempt to write as if I did not care what reviewers said, what peers thought, or what prevailing opinions may be.

Part of the appeal of fantasy for me is that I don't get bored. If I want to write quasi-Medieval, that's what I write. If I feel like doing contemporary for a while, then I'll do it.

The mental state I'm in is completely different, but the act of trying to write is the same. I mean, in all instances you try to write good sentences. But in a novel you're free to do whatever you want, and in the autobiographical works you can't make things up.

Authors make stuff up. Let's not pretend it's any more magical than that.

I suppose I'm pulled towards fiction because I really like the freedom it gives me.

Writers, and particularly female writers, have to fight for the conditions they need to work.

There is nothing in anything that I have ever written that could be reasonably construed as an incitement to violence against anyone.

When I begin a book, I inevitably discover many things along the way, about the characters, their past histories and the political intrigues that surround them. This discovery process is vital, and I would not prejudice it by deciding too much in advance.