“To write a novel, you begin with what you can see and then you add what came before and what came after.
… You must understand that when you are writing a novel you are not making anything up. It's all there and you just have to find it.”
Source: Red Dragon
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Thomas Harris66
American author and screenwriter 1940Related quotes
“You never learn how to write a novel. You just learn how to write the novel that you're writing.”
Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer
Henri Peyre (1901–1988) American linguist
Henri Peyre, at Yale, as quoted in Graham, Garrett, The Writer's Voice: Conversations with Contemporary Writers (1973), p. 272
“What do you do when Mom leaves you alone like this? (Kat)
I write romance novels. (Acheron)”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist
Source: Devil May Cry
“All you can write is what you see.”
Woody Guthrie (1912–1967) American singer-songwriter and folk musician
Comment written on his first manuscript notes for "God Blessed America" (23 February 1940); quoted in Woody Guthrie: A Life (1981) by Joe Klein, p. 136
Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer
"Thomas Love Peacock: The Novel of Ideas" (1980)
1980s, The Second American Revolution (1983)
Variant: In any case, write what you know will always be excellent advice to those who ought not to write at all.
Source: The Essential Gore Vidal