Charles de Lint
Charles de Lint
Charles de Lintis a Canadian writer of Dutch origins. In 1974 he met MaryAnn Harris, and married her in 1980. They live in Canada...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth22 December 1951
CountryCanada
notebook real character
As the new work fills my notebooks, I've come to realize that the characters in my stories were so real because I really did want to get close to people, I really did want to know them. It was just easier to do it on paper, one step removed.
real writing character
I'd say that any character or setting can be given a bit of an otherworldly sheen and be the better for it. The one thing I insist on with my own writing is that I won't let magic solve my characters' real world problems. The solutions have to come from the characters themselves.
attitude character writing
I think a good writer is a mix of confidence (sure that what they're writing is going to appeal to their readers) and uncertainty (what if all these words are crap?). If you're too confident, you get an attitude that seeps through into your writing, affecting the characters and the story. If you're too uncertain, you'll never finish anything.
writing character knows
I find the characters in my head and the more I write about them, the better I get to know them.
character normal dysfunctional-family
Well, while I didn't have the more extreme experiences of some of my characters, I didn't exactly come from the most normal of households. Or rather, it was normal, in that dysfunctional families appear to be the norm.
pain real character
My characters seem real because they are drawn from the realities of my life. I didn't have to research their pain; I just tapped into my own.
character attention elements
When one of my characters becomes aware of a magical element, it might be because the world is wider than we assume it to be, but it might also be a reminder to pay attention to what is here already, hidden only because it's been forgotten.
life real thinking
The real problem is, people think life is a ladder, and it's really a wheel.
nice years two
The thing I like so much about short stories is that there isn't as much of an investment of time so I'm free to experiment more. If it doesn't work out, I've only lost a week or two of work. If I screw up a novel I've lost at least a year's worth of work. But the nice thing is that those experiments with short stories can be carried over to novels when the experiments do work.
writing use different
Writing music uses a whole different process that involves a lot of noodling and just seeing what comes.
white differences black
You know how we'd get along better? If everybody'd just remember how we're all related. White, black, Asian, skin. No difference. All the bloodlines go back to that one old mama in Africa.
honesty lying stories
I've always believed the lies we use to make our fictions reveal the truth with far more honesty than any history or herstory or life story.
personality important followers
It's not the work or the personality of the founder of a religion that's important, but what its followers do with what they learn.
book writing long
My theory about writing is that one should write books you'd like to read, but no one else has written yet. So, as long as I stick with that, I'm entertaining myself, and then hopefully my readers as well. I hope to god I realize that I'm repeating myself, if I ever do. But if I don't, I'm sure my readers will let me know.