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Comment from the book world in August 2013

August 2013

'The entertaining, immersive qualities of writing'

26 August 2013

'The size of the book was a real surprise to me. It just kept growing and growing. My publishers would be able to tell you that I had been lying to them about when the book was going to be ready for the last three years. But I'm much more interested in the entertaining, immersive qualities of writing than I am with more abstract formal qualities. It might be a weird thing to say, given the architecture of The Luminaries, but I would much rather read an entertaining novel that is simply written, than an extremely lush novel that is difficult...

In a way The Luminaries is a good training for YA becasue it's so intensely plotted, and it's about learning how to navigate and satisfy readers' expectations and their desires - which are not necessarily the same thing. In fact, they are often really different. Now that I know how much fun it is to work out a mystery plot, I'm a little bit hooked.

Eleanor Catton, author of The Luminaries, which has just been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize

'I express my thinking indirectly in my novels'

19 August 2013

'When I was at primary school my father gave me a broken alarm clock and I used to take it apart and put it back together again. When I think of a plot I think of its components, which can be characters or incidents. The important thing is never to force a component into a place where it will not fit...

I'm a novelist and I express my thinking indirectly in my novels. I don't need to spell it out. I don't know whether I'll take up this disaster in my fiction or not - the important thing is never to pretend that it didn't happen.'

Keigo Higashimo, author of The Devotion of Suspect X, in The Times

'I just try to reflect what life can be like.'

12 August 2013

'I don't set out to write a book that will deliberately traumatise children or introduce them to dreadful things. I just try to reflect what life can be like. If you happen to write children's books, people often think your books are like childcare manuals: you're saying this is the way your children should be. And I'm not saying that at all. I'm just trying to write books that are interesting and entertaining and involving.

In fact, I'm quite old-fashioned in my views. Just because I write about disturbed children who might be angry and abusive and not respectful to adults, that's not to say I don't think politeness is great.'

Jacqueline Wilson in the Sunday Telegraph

'I don't see female characters as vicious...'

5 August 2013

'I don't see female characters as vicious. In literature, you find so many instances of male characters who are immoral, tormented or angry - all the things that male characters seem very freely able to be...

People assume you're using a substantial part of your life when you write fiction. Although I did have to be careful. Every once in a while, if we'd had an argument, I'd be downstairs at my little laptop and like "And another thing..."'

Gillian Flynn, the author of Gone Girl, who has sold the film rights and will be writing the screenplay, in The Times