A Quote by Elizabeth Crook

As for whether genre considerations influence what I write, they don't at all, but I might sell more books if they did. The Night Journal is a hodge-podge of historical fiction, western, mystery, and contemporary domestic drama. It doesn't settle into a specific market, reviewers have a hard time describing it, and sometimes it gets classified weirdly in bookstores. But from a writer's standpoint, I like that it's hard to categorize.

Elizabeth Crook

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Books Bookstores Categorize Classified Contemporary Describing Did Domestic Drama Fiction Genre Gets Hard Hard Time Historical Historical Fiction Influence Journal Like Market Might More Mystery Night Reviewers Sell Settle Sometimes Specific Standpoint Time Western Whether Write Writer

Quote Author

Elizabeth Crook
American - Novelist
Born: 1959

A romance novel is more than just a story in which two people fall in love. It's a very specific form of genre fiction. Not every story with a horse and a ranch in it is a Western; not every story with a murder in it is a mystery; and not every book that includes a love story can be classified as a romance novel.

Leigh Michaels

The thing about being a mystery writer, what marks a mystery writer out from a chick lit author or historical fiction writer, is that you always find a mystery in every situation.

Tana French

'Confederate,' in all of our minds, will be an alternative-history show. It's a science-fiction show. One of the strengths of science fiction is that it can show us how this history is still with us in a way no strictly realistic drama ever could, whether it were a historical drama or a contemporary drama.

D. B. Weiss

Many years ago I had two small children, and I wanted to be able to be home when they got home from school. And I didn't like the direction journalism was taking. I thought if I could write books, I could work at home and have the best of both worlds. I wrote my first mystery while still working full time, and it didn't sell, but the next one did sell, so I quit my job for the world of fiction. Scary, but I've never regretted it for a single day.

Mary Kay Andrews

I've been typed as historical fiction, historical women's fiction, historical mystery, historical chick lit, historical romance - all for the same book.

Lauren Willig

This sounds like a cliche, but I always wanted to write. After college, I did some writing and realized very quickly that it's hard to make a living as a writer. At that point, I was more interested in fiction writing.

Hooman Majd

Fiction is lies; we're writing about people who never existed and events that never happened when we write fiction, whether its science fiction or fantasy or western mystery stories or so-called literary stories. All those things are essentially untrue. But it has to have a truth at the core of it.

George R. R. Martin

Historical novels are about costumery. I think that's the magic and mystery of fiction. I don't want to write historical fiction but I do want the story to have the feel of history. There's a difference.

Chang-Rae Lee

Oddly enough, my favorite genre is not fiction. I'm attracted by primary sources that are relevant to historical questions of interest to me, by famous old books on philosophy or theology that I want to see with my own eyes, by essays on contemporary science, by the literatures of antiquity.

Marilynne Robinson

I haven't written poetry in a long time but I read it and I miss it. It is so hard to write. So hard to finish, so hard to find the exact word to make it shine. In honor of my youth I will write a poem to finish this essay. It is spring in the Ozark Mountains. The yellow flowers are blooming and the birds wake me at dawn and last night five planets lined up by the moon in the western sky. If that doesn't inspire me to poetry what will?

Ellen Gilchrist

I think I view myself primarily as a fiction writer. Poetry is more of a "hobby," a time of rest from the hard work of writing fiction.

Yuriy Tarnawsky

It's hard selling books in general: companies are merging, editors being laid off, bricks-and-mortar bookstores closing, large chain bookstores squeezing out independents, and online retailers squeezing out chain bookstores.

Christina Baker Kline

Creative non-fiction is such a liberating genre because it allows the non-fiction writer, whether he or she be journalist or essayist, to use all of the techniques of the fiction writer and all of the ideas, creative approaches, that fiction writers get a chance to use, but they have to use it in a true story.

Lee Gutkind

It's so damn hard to write a great historical mystery based on fact. It's not for lack of trying.

Jon Turteltaub

I actually worked in the general market for many years writing steamy historical romance, and I had more freedom in the Christian market than I ever did in the general market to write about any issue that I needed to write about.