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You find when you're writing a detective story that you're actually not trying to solve anything. You're trying to stop the reader from solving the puzzle.

Christopher Bollen

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Christopher Bollen
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: November 26
Journalist
Novelist
Cincinnati
Ohio
Writing
Solve
Trying
Reader
Stop
Story
Detective
Actually
Detectives
Stories
Puzzle
Anything
Solving
Find
Puzzles

More quotes by Christopher Bollen

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I just think, as writers, especially with a book that takes years to write, you sort of wake up every morning hoping and praying that you can make it work for the day.
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I feel that I'm solid at description.
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I was obsessed with Agatha Christie in sixth grade.
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I like change. I've never really had much consistency in my life, you know, from everyday work to my living situation to whether or not I'm going to be in L.A. The one constant thing in my life is my friends and family, which is all I need
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The first horror movie I saw, in first or second grade, was My Bloody Valentine [1981], where there's a deranged killer in a miner mask stalking a small coal town.
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I definitely don't take any of intrusions in my private life personally. You learn how to have a sense of humor pretty quickly. I honestly don't keep up on it unless it's something that would hurt someone else. I can take care of myself, that's not the problem. But it's just not fair to bring anyone else into the picture.
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There is something very romantic about the orphan figure in American literature.
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I have to say I do read partly for escapism. Why can't I escape and learn something?
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There's a structure to a detective story that I can easily understand. I understand playing that particular game. It's like solving a puzzle. Or creating a puzzle.
Christopher Bollen
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If you've been in the art world for more than eight years, you realize another generation is making the exact same work as the previous generation - but treating it like it's never been done before. It becomes very cyclical very quickly.
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There seem to be two ways of generating interest from the reader: withholding information or by telling the reader on the first page exactly what's going to happen.
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It's just as political, what you do in the bedroom is just as political as what you do in public.
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I was never afraid on stage. That's where I was the least afraid. I could just do what I do and I had the amplification and the lights.
Christopher Bollen
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Going out into the country after living in the city is a loss of control.
Christopher Bollen
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I was a very scared child.
Christopher Bollen
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My strength is character. I'm pretty good at building walking-talking humans with brains like beehives.
Christopher Bollen
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The death drive is parasitic. It runs off of other drives, leeching off of them.
Christopher Bollen
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Every time I try to write on vacation, I fail miserably.
Christopher Bollen
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I had lived in New York since 1996, sometimes in the worst neighborhoods, without even locking my door half the time.
Christopher Bollen
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There is a value to moving more slowly through a story.
Christopher Bollen