American - Author | October 17, 1971 -
I like writing for teenagers because they're not snobs.
Patrick Ness
WritingBecauseTeenagersLike
I write 1,000-1,500 words. The next day, I rewrite it and add 1,000-1,500 words to the end of it.
DayWordsEndWriteNextAdd
I like writers who seem to write because they have to. You get the feeling of this burning desire to tell a story. I find it in Peter Carey, Nicola Barker, Ali Smith and David Foster Wallace.
StoryYouFeelingFindDesireWrite
Happiness is precious, and so I prefer to keep mine private. In a world where everyone shares everything, I can think of a lot of happy moments, but they're mine.
HappinessHappyWorldThinkMoments
I meet blind and partially-sighted young readers all the time, and it's a shock that so few books are available to them.
TimeBlindYoungMeetAvailableFew
No one wants to read an apologetic book.
BookReadWantsApologetic
I think the reason teenage fiction is so popular with adults is that adults hunger for narrative just as badly as teenagers do.
ThinkReasonHungerFictionJust
How you leave the reader is so important - not the climax; I call it the 'exit feeling'.
YouFeelingImportantExitLeave
If I sit down to write a young-adult novel, then I'm going to write either to the punch-pulling expectation of what I can't do, or I'm going to go the other way and think about what can I sneak in to be 'down with the kids' - which would be excruciating.
ThinkDownGoExpectationWayWrite
If you set out to write an adjective novel, you're setting out to write a mediocre novel; your allegiance is to the adjective, not to the story, and then that just sucks all the joy right out of it.
JoyStoryYouWriteRightOut
Plot is a framework on which to drape other things. So once that's working, I can just let it go and do all the stuff that I love - 'Trojan horse' it. There are so many great YA heroines, and that's fantastic, but what about the emotionally complex boy out there? That's who I tend to write about.
LoveGreatHorseI CanGoBoy
I don't purposely push the boundaries... I think if you pay attention to a story, it will have exactly as much 'difficult material' as it needs, and nobody will complain about it because you've earnt it.
StoryThinkPushAttentionYouWill
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