When I'm writing a book, sentence by sentence, I'm not thinking theoretically. I'm just trying to work out the story from inside the characters I've got.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the immersive and organic process of writing, where the author focuses on character-driven storytelling rather than theoretical constructs.
Salman Rushdie expresses the idea that during the writing process, he is deeply engaged with the characters he has created, allowing their internal motivations and stories to guide his narrative. This suggests that effective writing emerges from a genuine understanding of characters rather than relying on external theories or frameworks.
In practice
This quote could be used in a writing workshop to inspire participants to connect with their characters.
I've been fascinated by Machiavelli since I was very young. I've always felt that he had a bad rap from history, and that he was actually a person quite unlike what we now think of as Machiavellian. He was a republican. He disliked totalitarian government.
Killing people because you don't like their ideas - it's a bad thing.
faith without doubt is addiction
I am clearly vulnerable to these more passionate and volatile unstable relationships. I am trying to not be so vulnerable.
In India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of 'respect.' What is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the crimes now being committed almost daily around the world in religion's dreaded name?
Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible.
Bright colours in the west, giant butterflies dancing as night crept like a cripple toward the east.
Birds sat on the telegraph wires that spanned the river as the black notes sit on a staff of music.
Sometimes the fragment of a conversation, the color of the sky, the image in a dream, has everything to do with where the song begins.
From his tongue flowed speech sweeter than honey.
I believe that the reason why I love painting so much is that it forces one to be objective. There is nothing I hate more than sentimentality.
In a way, editing is not unlike the movies. The best books, just like the best movies, are a collaboration. They're only as good as the compromise made between the artists involved.
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