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Some writers can produce marvelous plots without planning it out, but I can't. In particular I need to know the structure of a novel: what's going to happen in each chapter and each scene.

Emma Donoghue

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Emma Donoghue
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: October 24
Literary Historian
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
Dublin city
Without
Structure
Need
Writers
Needs
Scene
Plots
Going
Produce
Chapter
Novel
Chapters
Particular
Marvelous
Happen
Plot
Happens
Planning

More quotes by Emma Donoghue

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I was highly aware, in writing [the book] ROOM, that there are unsavoury aspects to our interest in such cases, and I thought it was rather honester to include discussion of media representation in the novel itself than to cling to the high moral ground by merely avoiding scenes of voyeurism, for instance.
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Goodbye, Room. I wave up at Skylight. Say goodbye, I tell Ma. Goodbye, Room. Ma says it but on mute. I look back one more time. It's like a crater, a hole where something happened. Then we go out the door.
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Sometimes you must shed your skin to save it.
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Writing stories is my way of scratching that itch: my escape from the claustrophobia of individuality. It lets me, at least for a while, live more than one life, walk more than one path. Reading, of course, can do the same.
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The paradox of publicity is that even as we do it, we know it's killing off the chance of another reader happening across our book in the ideal state of innocence.
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I tend to be so lost in the work that I don't notice the weather. My partner will come home and say, 'Beautiful day, wasn't it?' and I'll say, 'Was it?' as I won't have noticed the real world at all.
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I think I know what it's like to have a family that the outside world sees as peculiar or lacking.
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When people write to me with stories, they are never ones that work for me. There's something mysterious about which ones catch you.
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The sound of the pages turning was the sound of magic. The dry liquid feel of paper under fingertips was what magic felt like.
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I read three books a week.
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Stories are a different kind of true.
Emma Donoghue
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Something we do know is that review coverage does go to male authors more than women authors. That's a fact. I think it's one of those examples of unconscious bias: If you hire a lot of male journalists, they're more likely to pick up the latest Ian McEwan novel than the latest A.S. Byatt novel.
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You know who you belong to Jack? - Yeah. Yourself. - He's wrong, actually, I belong to Ma. p. 261 Room by E Donoghue
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I guess the feminism in Room springs to mind most.
Emma Donoghue
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Nowadays, 'invisibility' was supposed to be the big problem, but the way I saw it was, all that mattered was to be visible to yourself.
Emma Donoghue
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I've been in a long and happy relationship for 22 years and it's never inspired me to write anything. It's too good - nothing to say. Problems, conflict, that's what makes for good stories.
Emma Donoghue
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At the door, there was one of those moment when two people realize that they like each other more than they know each other. This is nicer than the opposite situation, but more awkward. You try to remember the protocol for touching. You hate to gush, or presume to much, yet you are unwilling to let the moment pass without without some gesture
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Maybe I’m a human, but I’m a me-and-Ma as well.
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When I was a little kid I thought like a little kid, but now I'm five I know everything
Emma Donoghue
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This is a bad story.” “Sorry. I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.” “No, you should,” I say. “But—” “I don’t want there to be bad stories and me not know them.
Emma Donoghue