Quote

We have to give our poor, innocent, and undeserving-of-our-badness characters trouble in order to make them characters in a story.

Alice Mattison

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Alice Mattison
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 18
Novelist
New York City
New York
Make
Trouble
Story
Poor
Order
Stories
Undeserving
Character
Badness
Give
Innocent
Giving
Characters

More quotes by Alice Mattison

Image
I think the difference between writing as someone and writing for them is that when you write for someone, you take on a kind of political burden or message, which I don't think we have the right to do.
Alice Mattison
Image
Writers sometimes are paid a great deal of money, but much more frequently they're not paid or are paid only a little bit.
Alice Mattison
Image
When an editor first explained to me the difference between direct and indirect writing, I just thought it was a stylistic choice.
Alice Mattison
Image
Sometimes indirect style and varying chronology is great, but quite often I've seen it be just something that gets in the way. It turns out when I talk to the writer that she or he, and more often it's a woman, that she's worried.
Alice Mattison
Image
I love it when people can help me with my work, so I do show it.
Alice Mattison
Image
Censorship is all around us, I don't think it's innate.
Alice Mattison
Image
Sometimes I write well when I'm very upset.
Alice Mattison
Image
You may be somebody who writes best for a small press that doesn't pay very well, but you might have a fascinating and intricate style that might not appeal to as many readers but will be incredibly meaningful to the readers you have. Truly, that's as wonderful if not more wonderful.
Alice Mattison
Image
Telling someone to be confident in the abstract is not going to make it easier for the unconfident writer to actually get herself or himself to the point of being able to put in the upsetting stuff.
Alice Mattison
Image
In many cultures, women are sometimes literally kept from learning to read or from going to school.
Alice Mattison
Image
Anyone with an imagination can write about the day-to-day experiences of someone he or she is not.
Alice Mattison
Image
I'm very secretive. I'll write a whole novel and revise it, which might take me two years or more, and the people I know best don't know what I'm writing about.
Alice Mattison
Image
You can't tell a writer they should just be more confident.
Alice Mattison
Image
Maybe we're stuck with who we are.
Alice Mattison
Image
I think a day in your life on which nothing bad happens may be a wonderful day, but it probably isn't going to be the basis of a story.
Alice Mattison
Image
Certainly children are being encouraged far more than they were seventy-five years ago and are more accepted as they are.
Alice Mattison
Image
I actually think it's sometimes easier for the control freaks to let loose.
Alice Mattison
Image
I've been astonished how often, when I convince a writer to tell a story more straightforwardly and to tell it more simply and directly, it turns out that this author is great and the story is wonderful.
Alice Mattison
Image
Sometimes it's interesting to see what people who have too much control need to do to write freely.
Alice Mattison
Image
There's the belief that we can't be smart enough to write. And certainly censorship of women, too.
Alice Mattison