#novel

Novelists do not write as birds sing, by the push of nature. It is part of the job that there should be much routine and some daily stuff on the level of carpentry. ↗

— William Golding

#carpentry #daily #job #level #much

When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature. ↗

— Ernest Hemingway

#character #characters #create #living #novel

But novels are never about what they are about; that is, there is always deeper, or more general, significance. The author may not be aware of this till she is pretty far along with it. ↗

— Diane Johnson

#along #always #author #aware #deeper

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. ↗

— C. S. Forester

#end #felt #heard #i #joined

I never discuss a novel while I'm writing it, for fear that talking about it will diminish my desire to write it. ↗

— Dean Koontz

#desire #diminish #discuss #fear #i

In my personal life, I'm a comic novel. But then, so are we all, because we're human beings. ↗

— Dean Koontz

#beings #comic #human #human beings #i

When I'm working on a novel, I work 70-hour weeks. ↗

— Dean Koontz

#novel #weeks #work #working

I consciously try to end my novels at a point where I won't have to wonder about my characters ever again. ↗

— Anne Tyler

#again #characters #consciously #end #ever

Let me back up a little and tell you why I prefer writing to real life: You can rewrite. A novel, for example, can be cleaned up, altered, trimmed, improved. Life, on the other hand, is one big messy rough draft. ↗

— Harlan Coben

#back #back up #big #cleaned #draft

I don't think you can write novels on the road. You need a certain stability. ↗

— Leonard Cohen

#i #need #novels #road #stability