A Quote by Helen Dunmore

Writing children's books gives a writer a very strong sense of narrative drive.

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Books Children Children's Books Drive Gives Narrative Sense Strong Strong Sense Very Very Strong Writer Writing Writing Children's Books

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Helen Dunmore
British - Novelist
December 12, 1952 - June 5, 2017

I guess the wildcard here is Terrence Malick. He supervised me while I was writing the script for Beautiful Country, and he is a genius, although not always easy to follow. What I learned from him is that the narrative can be tracked through all kinds of scenes, that the strong narrative thread is not always the one that is most obvious. Creating narrative with Malick was a bit like chasing a butterfly through a jungle. This approach to narrative is fun and complicated, something that makes the process of writing constantly interesting to this writer.

Sabina Murray

My writing has always been what you call 'narrative fiction' in the sense that it's got very strong plots and twists at the end.

Anthony Horowitz

Just write. If you have to make a choice, if you say, 'Oh well, I'm going to put the writing away until my children are grown,' then you don't really want to be a writer. If you want to be a writer, you do your writing... If you don't do it, you probably don't want to be a writer, you just want to have written and be famous—which is very different.

Jane Yolen

There is the myth that writing books for children is easier than writing books for grownups, whereas we know that truly great books for children are works of genius, whether it's 'Alice in Wonderland' or the 'Gruffalo' or 'Northern Lights.' When it's a great book, it's a great book, whether it's for children or not.

Michael Morpurgo

As a writer, you need a strong sense of self-belief. And when it comes to writing, I've always had that.

Ronald Frame

Many people ask why a writer commits suicide. But I think that people who ask don't know the vanity and the nothingness of writing. I think it is very usual and natural for a writer to commit suicide, because in order to keep on writing he must be a very strong person.

Kobo Abe

I don't really have a drive toward being a director at all. Not that I wouldn't rule it out, but I just don't think my instincts lie necessarily in a very visual way. But I am very interested in storytelling, narrative and character development, so writing is something that I absolutely want to do.

Rose McIver

I don't change the language for children books. I don't make the language simpler. I use words that they might have to look up in the dictionary. The books are shorter, but there's just not that much difference other than that to be honest. And the funny thing is, I have adult writer friends [to whom I would say], "Would you think of writing a children's book?" and they go, "No, God, I wouldn't know how." They're quite intimidated by the concept of it. And when I say to children's books writers, would they write an adult book, they say no because they think they're too good for it.

John Boyne

What gives my books authenticity is that I actually do what it is I'm writing about. I think the fact that I am in the autopsy room, I go to the crime scene and I do work in the lab gives my books this flavor that otherwise they wouldn't have.

Kathy Reichs

Even though I'm a writer and I love books and writing books is my favorite thing to do, when you teach, and you can go through the history of children's television, and I show certain things, the students' jaws just drop. You're never going to hit the hammer quite as hard in print.

David Bianculli

We had absolutely no experience in writing kids books and its a very competitive market. But we buy and read a lot of children's books and we felt that our books had that extra something we were always looking for.

Tom Fletcher

A lot of school-going children are familiar with my writing. I am basically very much a children books author.

Ruskin Bond

Whether it's writing a monologue or writing standup or writing a screenplay or writing a play, I think staying involved in the creation of your own work empowers you in a way, even if you don't ever do it. It gives you a sense of ownership and a sense of purpose, which I think as an actor is really important.

Denis O'Hare

I always have strong feelings when I'm writing a book. Sometimes when I'm writing a book, I even cry when I'm writing. Once I read a quotation that I thought was very true for me, which is: "No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader."

Eve Bunting

When I'm writing books, something weird happens; and the result is the books contain a large amount of what you could call 'supernaturalism.' As a writer, I find I need that to explain the world I'm writing about.

Salman Rushdie

When I read 'Greenberg,' I had a really strong sense if I could be any kind of writer I wanted to be, I'd be this kind of writer. And I felt like, even in my experiences, what writing I had done, even on a small scale, when it was good, it shared some quality with it.

Greta Gerwig

A Quote by Helen Dunmore

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