Writing Your Own Novel Quotes & Sayings

For me, writing a novel is like having a dream. Writing a novel lets me intentionally dream while I'm still awake. I can continue yesterday's dream today, something you can't normally do in everyday life. — Haruki Murakami

Objectifying your own novel while writing it never really helps. Instead, I guess while you're writing you need to think: This is the novel I want to write. And when you're done you need to think: This is what the novel I wanted to write feels like and reads like and looks like. Other people might call it sweeping or small, but it's the book you chose. — Meg Wolitzer

I absolutely fell in love with David Cristofanos writing. THE GIRL SHE USED TO BE is that rare novel
its the one youve been looking for when you wander the bookstore aisles, hoping to find something that will grab hold of you and not let go. Eloquent, haunting, and totally enthralling, I was swept in from page one. — Johanna Edwards

There is one final point, the point that separates a true multivolume work from a short story, a novel, or a series. The ending of the final volume should leave the reader with the feeling that he has gone through the defining circumstances of Main Character's life. The leading character in a series can wander off into another book and a new adventure better even than this one. Main Character cannot, at the end of your multivolume work. (Or at least, it should seem so.) His life may continue, and in most cases it will. He may or may not live happily ever after. But the problems he will face in the future will not be as important to him or to us, nor the summers as golden. — Gene Wolfe

I think the novel is a wonder....it has vitality to an extraordinary degree, and glamour, and a great deal of underlying thought of unusual quality....And as for the sheer writing, it's astonishing. [About The Great Gatsby] — Maxwell Perkins

Oh, readers. If only you knew what we've gone through for you. — Harry Olsen

It took me the bulk of my twenties to write one book about a family of alligator wrestlers. Whereas somebody like Steve Martin is releasing his latest banjo symphony, having just completed another movie and acclaimed, best-selling novel. — Karen Russell

The strange thing about writing is that it's so easy to write a novel. It is really easy. But it's getting there to the point where it's easy that's hard. The hard part is to get there. — Karl Ove Knausgard

For me, having it all is being paid to write novels. — Candace Bushnell

I wanted to write something that was very entertaining to read. The hardest part of this novel [The Yoga of Max's Discontent] was how to make a deeply spiritual transformation journey page-turning and adventurous. That was the hardest part to crack for me. — Karan Bajaj

Reshuffllng of thoughts - facilitates a refreshed perspective to a mental deadlock! — Deeba Salim Irfan

Wrote my first "novel" when I was six. Studied a bit in college, but then pursued history ... But when I started writing professionally, it was mostly learn as you go. — David B. Coe

Only another writer can know how much damage writing a novel can do to you. It's an unnatural activity to sit at a desk and squeeze words out of yourself. — Norman Mailer

I write all of my novels and stories, as you have seen, in a great surge of delightful passion. Only recently, glancing at the novel, I realized that Montag is named after a paper manufacturing company. And Faber, of course, is a maker of pencils! What a sly thing my subconscious was, to name them thus. And not tell me! — Ray Bradbury

Novel writing seems an altogether less intimidating occupation when one considers that one only need produce a small tale. — Charlie Lovett

With a click, my novel would be born; it would come out into the light suddenly transformed from the hypothetical text composed in my imagination into finished, tangible thing with a real and independent existence. The moment of clicking on the print button always gave rise to strange and powerful ambivalence
a combination of self-satisfaction, gloom and anxiety. Self-satisfaction for having finished writing the book. Gloom because taking my leave of the characters has the same effect on me as when a group of friends have to depart. And anxiety, perhaps because I am on the verge of delivering up into other people's hands something that I treasure. — Alaa Al Aswany

Writing a novel is agony. — George Orwell

Writing in a near frenzy is wonderful and freeing, but for me, it did not result in a nice, shiny novel. Instead, what I have is a mess. — Erin Morgenstern

To all those whom seek the iron words of the community: if your book is good, it will stand on its own. Be it a short story, a novel, a novella, a chapter book, a poetry book, a chapbook, a manga or a graphic novel ... it will seek reviews by itself. You need to do nothing with it. Do nothing but write. Give up review seeking and focus on writing, for that is what becomes you in the end. — L'Poni Baldwin

I try not to write more than two or three, I try to just write one if possible, I write till the end at least a draft of a play or a novel; but sometimes, I'll take a break for a couple weeks for a project that is paying me money like a television project which I try to stay away from just to stay financially ahead of the game. — Adam Rapp

When well executed, description is unobtrusive and lends substance to a novel. It is the body fat of prose: too much is unhealthy, but without any, you no longer have the thing - you have its skeleton. — Howard Mittelmark

Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself. You bring to a novel, anything you read, all your experience of the world. You bring your history and you read it in your own terms. — Angela Carter

The only thing I can say that is not bullshit is that you do have to learn to write in a way that you would learn to play the violin. Everybody seems to think that you should be able to turn on the faucet one day and out will come the novel. I think for most people it's just practice, practice, practice, that sense of just learning your instrument until - when you have an idea on the violin, you don't have to translate it into violin-speak anymore - the language is your own. It's not something you can think your way into, or outsmart. you've just got to do it. — Kevin Canty

Senior year. And then life. Maybe that's the way it worked. High school was just a prologue to the real novel. Everybody got to write you
but when you graduated, you got to write yourself. At graduation you got to collect your teacher's pens and your parents' pens and you got your own pen. And you could do all the writing. Yeah. Wouldn't that be sweet? — Benjamin Alire Saenz

I often wonder if I have fulfilled my purpose. I believe the key to living life to the fullest is to always be recognizing opportunities and following your own path. To enjoy every minute, whether it's writing a novel, giving a speech, or petting the kitties, it's your life. — David Mezzapelle

For a really long time [before writing the novel], I was watching a lot of serial killer movies and I started to wonder if this was a trend and if other people were doing the same thing. That's what happens when you suddenly have a critical perspective on your own behavior. — Lucy Corin

Bringing a novel to light - revealing the form and cadence, shadows and demeanor of a protagonist constructed from thin air - linking scenes and synchronicity across translucent time - holding up a glass brimming with chilled, never-tasted liquid, then sipping from it with intoxicated focus - allowing lovers to make a perilous mess of things, fall apart and nakedly come back together again - looking through conjured windows deep into someone else's snow-bound solitude, feeling utterly alone yet being all-connected: this is not writing. It's world-creating.

It's raw, exposed dreaming. It's humbling. At first too personal and intimate to share, it evolves like a child into a life of its own until I have no say in what comes next.

It's what I wake at 4am to say Yes to, the spinning possibility of a new story relentlessly commanding me to write it down so it can whirl in your experience. — Laurie Perez

Try everything; listen to everyone. Follow no one. You are your own story guru! — Jeff Lyons

Fiction writing is like duck hunting. You go to the right place at the right time with the right dog. You get into the water before dawn, wearing a little protective gear, then you stand behind some reeds and wait for the story to present itself ... You choose the place and the day. You pick the gun and the dog. You have the desire to blow the duck apart for reasons that are entirely your own. But you have to be willing to accept not what you wanted to have happen, but what happens ... By the time you get out of the marsh, you will have written a novel so devoid of ducks it will shock you. — Ann Patchett

Read like mad. But try to do it analytically - which can be hard, because the better and more compelling a novel is, the less conscious you will be of its devices. It's worth trying to figure those devices out, however: they might come in useful in your own work. — Sarah Waters

There was no romantic ending for Charlotte, but that's where writing your own novel can be so useful. — Catherine Lowell

A novel is a long confession in which you expose your heartaches, complain about all the things that are wrong in the world, then try to put those things right for the sake of the reader, as well as your own well being. — Chloe Thurlow

Many people are partial to the notion that ... all writers are somehow mere vessels for Truth and Beauty when they compose. That we are not really in control. This is a variation on that twee little fable that writers like to pass off on gullible readers, that a character can develop a will of his own and 'take over a book.' This makes writing sound supernatural and mysterious, like possession by faeries. The reality tends to involve a spare room, a pirated copy of MS Word, and a table bought on sale at Target. A character can no more take over your novel than an eggplant and a jar of cumin can take over your kitchen. — Paul Collins

What I am going to propose is that you write a novel.
As you know, the practical advantages of being able to write out your thoughts fluently are very great. For one thing, when you are used to writing them out, they present themselves, one after another. When you are not used to writing them out, they mill around among themselves usually and you see nothing but heads and tails of them when you sit down to get them on paper. I know from my own experience that the first two or three hours of every exam I ever took were spent simply getting my pen warmed up, and by then it was too late. — Ted Hughes

Writing a film - more precisely, adapting a book into a film - is basically a relentless series of compromises. The skill, the "art," is to make those compromises both artistically valid and essentially your own ... It has been said before but is worth reiterating: writing a novel is like swimming in the sea; writing a film is like swimming in the bath. — William Boyd

You do not need to be temperamental or upset to be a novelist. Don't embrace the tortured artist rhetoric that any life difficulties might serve to benefit and enhance your writing. That's damaging. Counterintuitive. Writing can be so incredibly lonely, and when you're alone with your thoughts for long enough to produce a hundred thousand words of your own headspace, it can be scary. Suffering is not good for your art. Mental health care is. So talk to someone other than your future readers about the problems you are facing. Someone you know and trust. There is no shame in asking for help. — Bryant A. Loney

People recover differently. Some change cities, some fall in love and some begin writing. — Kanza Javed

If she was going to write a novel, she felt defeated before she began, because someone might be coming along to pick it apart, looking for symbols like The Conch or The Whale, which seemed to have mythic proportions. — L.L. Barkat

Seven years into writing a novel, I started to lose my mind. My thirty-seventh birthday had just come and gone, the end of 2008 was approaching, and I was constantly aware of how little I had managed to accomplish. — Akhil Sharma

All novels must be autobiographical because I am the only material that I know. All of the characters are me. But at the same time, a novel is never autobiographical even if it describes the life of the author. Literary writing is a completely different medium. — John Banville

Good art can come out of thieves, bootleggers, or horse swipes. People really are afraid to find out just how much hardship and poverty they can stand. They are afraid to find out how tough they are. Nothing can destroy the good writer. The only thing that can alter the good writer is death. Good ones don't have time to bother with success or getting rich. Success is feminine and like a woman; if you cringe before her, she will override you. So the way to treat her is to show her the back of your hand. Then maybe she will do the crawling. — William Faulkner

I started the first drafts of the book during my sophomore year of college. I wasn't thinking at all about kids at the time. But I was thinking. A lot. About everything. I wish I could capture that head-space again; everything meant something to me in college. Every leaf, every sound, every lecture, every textbook. It's like I was on drugs, 24/7. I am glad I was able to pair that ceaseless pondering with plenty of time to write. What came of that time was the first draft of the novel, a lengthy, unnecessarily angst-driven pile of crap. Years later, with Zoloft, I approached the novel with a more level head, and came away with a much, much better novel. My advice to writers, I suppose, is write your novel when you feel like shit; edit when you feel great. — Caleb J. Ross

The Hollywood process is a living thing and you get used to that. — Paul T. Scheuring

Our lives are a novel being written. We are its author. Every action we encounter and every person we meet has a role and a place in our ultimate story. It is in our control to decide the level of how, who and what impacts us and how large a role we decide to assign each. — Mark W. Boyer

Thanks to the comic book publishers. Batman and Captain Marvel were responsible for my learning to read at least a year before I showed up at school. They got me interested in writing. Started my first novel at about eight. The title: 'The Canals of Mars.' — Jack McDevitt

It is so much hard work writing your first novel. You're not even sure that it is possible to do. — Asa Larsson

There isn't, unfortunately, any way of discovering whether you can write a publishable novel except by writing it. — John Braine

Writing a novel is like having a dream. — Haruki Murakami

Behind every novel is a greater story of how it came to be published. — T.L. Rese

Every good story needs a good ending. Don't write the beginning of a novel without knowing the end of it. — A.D.Y. Howle

I don't see myself as a very important person. But I was the second woman to write a novel in Iran, and I have written most of the novels about Iranian women. In this way, maybe I have a good place in Iranian literature. — Shahrnush Parsipur

Misunderstandings arise only in undefined relationships — Anuradha Bhattacharyya

Is it not superfluous to write more than one novel if the writer has not become, say, a new man? Obviously, all the novels of an author not infrequently belong together and are to a certain degree only one novel. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

It was a dark and stormy night. . .perfect for staying indoors and writing a novel! — Z

A good novel, one which entices the author as much as it beckons the reader. — W.J. Raymond

I started writing a novel from the monster's point of view. It has its own difficulties but, I'm ashamed to say, it's much easier writing from a psychopath's point of view than from that of their empathetic opposite. — Justine Larbalestier

When I was a child, writing was the worst possible choice of a career in my family. My father had always identified himself as a writer to my mother when they met. When they met, he was writing this great novel, there was no doubt about it. — Nick Flynn

I binge write. I think it's because I started seriously writing by participating in National Novel Writing Month, an online-based challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days. — Erin Morgenstern

Novel writing is like heroin addiction; it takes everything you've got. — James N. Frey

An idea you have might not be original. But by creating a novel out of that idea you can make it original. — Umberto Eco

I do not begin my novel at the beginning, I do not reach chapter three before I reach chapter four, I do not go dutifully from one page to the next, in consecutive order; no, I pick out a bit here and a bit there, till I have filled all the gaps on paper. This is why I like writing my stories and novels on index cards, numbering them later when the whole set is complete. Every card is rewritten many times. — Vladimir Nabokov

It is perfectly legitimate to write novels which are essentially prose poems, but in the end, I think, a novel is like a car, and if you buy a car and grow flowers in it, you're forgetting that the car is designed to take you somewhere else. — Robert Harris

I'll write to you. A super-long letter, like in an old-fashioned novel — Haruki Murakami

One of the things about writing a novel is you can do it any way you want. It's your voice that's important and I see absolutely no reason why a screenplay can't be the same. It makes it a hell of a lot easier when you're the writer and the director. — Quentin Tarantino