Jeffery Deaver Quotes (38 Quotes)


    You think publishing is tough but the music world is ten times tougher.

    I like the way words go together and I like the gamesmanship of writing poetry. It is such a challenge.

    It means working harder to do the research but I don't really mind - I don't think I have what it takes to chase criminals through back alleys and wade through blood at crime scenes.

    I liked the challenge of writing in a very concise structure in which both meaning and form are important.

    I spend about eight months researching and outlining my book.


    The outline is 95 percent of the book. Then I sit down and write, and that's the easy part.

    I write pretty much anywhere - on planes, in hotel rooms, anywhere in my house.

    Of course, all writers draw upon their personal experiences in describing day-to-day life and human relationships, but I tend to keep my own experiences largely separate from my stories.

    In general, I think, less is more and that if a reader stops reading because a book is too icky then I've failed in my obligation to the readers.

    I spend eight months outlining and researching the novel before I begin to write a single word of the prose.

    Rule one: Write about settings you're familiar with.

    The best way to learn about writing is to study the work of other writers you admire.

    To answer that I have to describe what I think is my responsibility as a thriller writer: To give my readers the most exciting roller coaster ride of a suspense story I can possibly think of.

    When you work alone, you need to socialize at some level.

    I also try very hard to create characters - both heroes and villains - with psychological depth.

    Certainly going back to Sherlock Holmes we have a tradition of forensic science featured in detective stories.

    In other words, the people who populate my books are more than caricatures.

    In suspense novels even subplots about relationships have to have conflict.

    Trying to write books with a subject matter or in a genre or style you're not familiar with is the best way to find the Big Block looming.

    The easy answer is that writing novels is a lot more fun than practicing law.

    I have to say that there are certain books that exist to tell a particular story and then there are books that exist in the context of character.

    Of course, I write crime stories, and I have to describe violence and the aftermath of violence.

    But one does not make living writing poetry unless you're a professor, and one frankly doesn't get a lot of girls as a poet.

    When I find myself frozen - whether I'm working on a brief passage in a novel or brainstorming about an entire book - it's usually because I'm trying to shoehorn an idea into the passage or story where it has no place.

    I've often said that there's no such thing as writer's block; the problem is idea block.

    When it comes time to write the book itself I'll shut the lights out, picture the scene I'm about to write then close my eyes and go at it. Yes, I can touch type.

    It's accurate to the extent that I explore the psychology of crime and crime detection in my books the minds of the criminal and his hunters.

    My books are primarily plot driven but the best plot in the world is useless if you don't populate them with characters that readers can care about.

    Generally my typical books have lots of twists and turns a big surprise ending and then usually another surprise at the end and ideally, as in Garden of Beasts, we get to the very end and we find at the last few pages that there's yet another surprise.

    So I work hard to present the human side of my characters while not neglecting the plot.

    I've always written, all my life, and when I was very young I developed an interest in poetry.

    Readers are paramount. I live to write books for them.

    If you have a craftsman's command of the language and basic writing techniques you'll be able to write - as long as you know what you want to say.

    Hardcover books are fairly expensive these days and to read one requires a significant commitment of time in our busy society. So I want to make sure that when readers buy one of my books they get something they're familiar with.

    I was editor of my high school literary magazine and a reporter for the school newspaper.

    For me a thriller is a very carefully structured story.

    The recent fascination, I think, reflects the shift in approach by law enforcement officials to embrace technology as wholeheartedly as the rest of the world.

    Ideally, I like to integrate the human issues into the suspense story itself.


    More Jeffery Deaver Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Books - Literature - World - Writing - Crime - Poetry - Light - Language - Work & Career - Garden - Society & Civilization - Characters - Poets - People - Law & Regulation - Idea - Time - Psychology - Place - View All Jeffery Deaver Quotations

    Related Authors


    Napoleon Hill - Oliver Wendell Holmes - Michael Cunningham - Margaret J. Wheatley - Ivo Andric - Herbert Kaufman - Henry Drummond - George Axelrod - Charles Caleb Colton - Bram Stoker


Authors (by First Name)

A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M
N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z

Other Inspiring Sections