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"I like to create imaginary characters and events around a real historical situation. I want readers to feel: OK, this probably didn't happen, but it might have."
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"The sixth sense is at the core of our experiences. It is what makes experiences out of events."
Author Name
Personal Development
"I am one of the 11.5% of New Yorkers who remain traumatized by the events of September 11."
Author Name
Personal Development
"The events with Henry III happened, obviously the way it happened, liberties were taken."
Author Name
Personal Development
"News events are like Texas weather. If you don't like it, wait a minute."
Author Name
Personal Development
"I'll write maybe one long paragraph describing the events, then a page or two breaking the events into chapters, and then reams of pages delving into my characters. After that, I'm ready to begin."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Mental events, it is said, are not passive happenings but the acts of a subject."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Now very often events are set up for photographers... The weddings are orchestrated about the photographers taking the picture, because if it hasn't been photographed it doesn't really exist."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Giving parties is a trivial avocation, but it pays the dues for my union card in humanity."
Author Name
Personal Development
"I outline fairly extensively because I'm usually dealing with real events. I don't need to give myself as much information as I used to, but I still like to have two pages of outline for every projected 100 pages of manuscript."
Author Name
Personal Development
"By a museum, I assume you mean an institution dedicated to the events of Sept. 11 and the aftermath. If that is done with sensitivity, I think it would be most appropriate."
Author Name
Personal Development
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"It was the most romantic plane ever made."
Aviation
"We all now tell stories by cutting from one dramatic scene to the next, whereas Victorian novelists felt free to write long passages of undramatic summary."
Now
"For success, the author must make the reader care about the destiny of the principals, and sustain this anxiety, or suspense, for about 100,000 words."
Success
"Most of my stories have some basis in fact."
Fact
"When I'm writing a woman character, I don't think, 'What would a woman do?' I just think, 'What would this character do in this situation?'"
Character
"I don't think there's any great mystery to writing female characters, so long as you talk to them. If you lived in a monastery and never met any women, maybe it would be difficult."
Woman
"With hindsight, we see that the Soviet Union never had a chance of world domination, but we didn't know that then."
Chance
"The research is the easiest. The outline is the most fun. The first draft is the hardest, because every word of the outline has to be fleshed out. The rewrite is very satisfying."
Writing
"James Bond is quite serious about his drinks and clothing and cigarettes and food and all that sort of thing. There is nothing wry or amused about James Bond."
Food
"My favorite period is World War II, and I'm in the middle of writing my fourth novel set in that era."
War
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