Stories Quotes - Page 24

• When you're reading a novel, I think the reason you care about how any given plot turns out is that you take it as a data point in the big story of how the world works. Does such-and-such a kind of guy get the girl in the end? Does adultery ever bring happiness? How do winners become winners?

  Elif Batuman

  Girl, Book, Reading

  "The Rumpus Interview With Elif Batuman". Interview with Sean Carman, therumpus.net. April 25, 2012.

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• It wasn't a case of me sitting down and thinking, right then, what shall I do with my life? Airline pilot? Plumber? Guitar manufacturer? Writer .... yeah, writer. I've always loved writing, from a very early age--I guess I was writing my first stories when I was still in single digits. It progressed, and the love of writing grew in my mind and is still growing. Doing it full-time, there are different stresses and tensions, and the business side of it comes to the fore sometimes. But I still love it, and I'm always thankful that I can do what I do and make a living from it.

  Tim Lebbon

  Stress, Writing, Thinking

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• I've always loved books. My mother told me that before I could talk, I'd babble in my crib as I turned the pages of my little cloth books, apparently telling stories to go along with the pictures.

  JoAnn Ross

  Mother, Book, Littles

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• While the romance genre has expanded so much over the years, in an odd way it's also narrowed, with too many people trying to stick stories into tight, well-defined marketing niches. It can, admittedly, be a tricky balancing act, but I believe the key is to be able to step back and take a long hard look at what you do well, what makes your work different from other writers, what feels the most natural to you when you're writing.

  JoAnn Ross

  Believe, Writing, Keys

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• The Mackenzie had never met folk so poor in story and song and legends, and it moved him to a pity that pricked at his eyes. Without that tapestry of colour and words and ritual, what was life but eating and mating, sleeping and moving your bowels? All of them good and necessary, but not enough; and they themselves needed that framework too, to give them meaning.

  S.M. Stirling

  Song, Moving, Eye

  "The Sword of the Lady". Book by S. M. Stirling, 2009.

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• I didn't do anything as active as deciding that I wanted to be a writer. For one thing, I didn't feel like I was the final authority on whether or not I was anything like a writer. (I'm a timid soul.) I just kept writing stories, because becoming a veterinarian seemed as if it involved too much dissection.

  Kelly Link

  Writing, Soul, Finals

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• There are stories about winter ghosts found tangled like lice in their lovers' hair. Dead people have no hair themselves, which is how they can be recognized in winter. But in summer, the living and dead may pass each other on the street, and no one knows the difference.

  Kelly Link

  Summer, Winter, Hair

  Kelly Link, Shelley Jackson (2005). “Magic for Beginners”, p.60, Small Beer Press

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• I think that we want to be led slightly astray when we're being told a story. Just a little wrong footed.

  Kelly Link

  Thinking, Want, Littles

  "INTERVIEW: Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble". Interview with Jason Diamond, electricliterature.com. February 6, 2015.

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• Well, I don't ever leave out details, in that I don't come up with information or description which I don't then use. I only ever come up with what seems to me absolutely essential to make the story work. I'm not usually an overwriter. As I revise, it's usually a matter of adding in as much vivid details as seem necessary to make the story come clear without slowing down the momentum of the story.

  Kelly Link

  Essentials, Details, Momentum

  Interview with Maggie Slater, www.apex-magazine.com. Juy 2, 2013.

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• I've gotten a little superstitious about listening to music when I write. Once a story is going somewhere, I keep listening to the same music whenever I work on that story. It seems to help me keep in voice, and alternatively, if I need to make some kind of dramatic shift, I'll go and put on something different to shake myself awake...

  Kelly Link

  Writing, Voice, Listening

  "Kelly Link, Words by Flashlight". Interview with Lauren McLaughlin, www.sensesfive.com. June 7, 2006.

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• What I like about narrative in general is when there is some incongruity between the form and content. Let's say, mixing up the gothic with a coming-of-age narrative. Telling a love story that's also a monster story. Mixing up superhero tropes with your monster tropes. I like category confusion.

  Kelly Link

  Confusion, Superhero, Age

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• Whether or not this story has a happy ending depends, of course, on who is reading it. Whether you are a wolf or a girl.

  Kelly Link

  Girl, Reading, Happy Endings

  Kelly Link (2008). “Pretty Monsters”, p.229, Penguin

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• In terms of style, too, I think I've been working with a somewhat limited -- although intentionally limited -- set of tools. So I'm attempting to be a bit looser as I start stories off. To digress. To make interesting mistakes.

  Kelly Link

  Mistake, Thinking, Interesting

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• I'm grateful when stories come in a rush, although I keep an eye on them afterwards, to see whether they hold together. It's harder to judge the ones that took so long to finish. With those, I've lost perspective. Mostly I'm just glad that I can be done with them.

  Kelly Link

  Grateful, Eye, Perspective

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• The initial spark usually has something to do with panic -- I'm due to turn in a story to a workshop or an editor. It's a terrible working method.

  Kelly Link

  Editors, Panic, Sparks

  "Kelly Link, Words by Flashlight". Interview with Lauren McLaughlin, www.sensesfive.com. June 7, 2006.

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• You get a lot of narrative energy from people who make really big mistakes, who act against their best interests, who do things that turn out to have serious consequences. It's very hard make a story out of people doing the right thing over and over again.

  Kelly Link

  Mistake, People, Narrative

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• I don't abandon stories once I've started working on them. Once I sit down and start a story, I'll be damned if I'm going to give up on it. But I do reject most of the ideas for stories that I come up with.

  Kelly Link

  Giving Up, Ideas, Down And

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• Most of the things that I remember from childhood wouldn't make a particularly good story: rescuing worms during rainstorms, our schnauzer attacking a wheel of cheese when someone dropped it during dinner, my parents tricking us into riding Space Mountain at Disney World (we thought it was an educational people-mover kind of ride), playing Star Wars (I got to marry Harrison Ford and my sister married Luke Skywalker) in first and second grade. On the other hand, we always had lots of interesting babysitters--seminary students and friends of my parents--who told really good ghost stories.

  Kelly Link

  Stars, War, Educational

  Interview with Lynne Jamneck, strangehorizons.com. February 28, 2005.

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• There’s always been a need for horror fiction, though - ghost stories have been a staple of every human society since the beginning of recorded literature - and while commercially the field may have its ups and downs, it will never go away. Hell, look at the Bible: gods, devils, ghosts, witches, giants, resurrections. That’s one big horror story. And it’s the most popular book on the planet.

  Bentley Little

  Book, Ghost Stories, Horror Stories

  "Bentley Little: The Elusive Dark Scribe Speaks". Interview with Vince A. Liaguno, www.darkscribemagazine.com. September 13, 2007.

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• I often use detective elements in my books. I love detective novels. But I also think science fiction and detective stories are very close and friendly genres, which shows in the books by Isaac Asimov, John Brunner, and Glen Cook. However, whilst even a tiny drop of science fiction may harm a detective story, a little detective element benefits science fiction. Such a strange puzzle.

  Sergei Lukyanenko

  Book, Thinking, Friendly

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• Death makes sad stories of us all.

  Tim Schafer

  Death, Sad Story

  "Grim Fandango". Video Game, www.imdb.com. 1998.

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• All true stories end in death.

  Matthew Woodring Stover

  Ends, True Story

  Matthew Woodring Stover (2008). “Blade of Tyshalle”, p.506, Del Rey

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• The story of the Kelly system is a story of secrets - or if you prefer, a story of entropy.

  William Poundstone

  Secret, Entropy, Ifs

  William Poundstone (2010). “Fortune's Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street”, p.76, Macmillan

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• To say that historical conditions made personal life possible, and with it the self-consciousness that allowed psychoanalysis to emerge, is to tell half the story: one also has to consider that the erotic impulse, ever pressing for satisfaction, had something to do with making the history that encouraged its expression.

  Ellen Willis

  Self, Expression, Erotic

  "Historical Analysis". "Dissent", Winter 2005.

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• Romance is all about making a story out of our love.

  Joey Comeau

  Romance, Our Love

  Interview with Adrian Comeau, "I Am Other People" interview series, www.asofterworld.com.

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