James Patterson
James Patterson
James Brendan Pattersonis an American author. He is largely known for his novels about fictional psychologist Alex Cross, the protagonist of the Alex Cross series. Patterson also wrote the Michael Bennett, Women's Murder Club, Maximum Ride, Daniel X, and Witch and Wizard series, as well as many stand-alone thrillers, non-fiction and romance novels. His books have sold more than 300 million copies and he holds the Guinness World Record for being the first person to sell 1 million e-books...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth22 March 1947
CityNewburgh, NY
CountryUnited States of America
If it's commercial fiction that you want to write, it's story, story, story. You've got to get a story where if you tell it to somebody in a paragraph, they'll go, "Tell me more." And then when you start to write it, they continue to want to read more. And if you don't, it won't work.
I write larger than life. It's what I do.
I guess I write four or five hours a day, but I do it seven days a week. It's very disciplined, yes, but it's joy for me.
I never read detective novels. I started out in graduate school writing a more serious book. Right around that time I read 'The Day of the Jackal' and 'The Exorcist'. I hadn't read a lot of commercial fiction, and I liked them.
I have a number of writers I work with regularly. I write an outline for a book. The outlines are very specific about what each scene is supposed to accomplish.
A lot of times you get people writing wonderful sentences and paragraphs, and they fall in love with their prose style, but the stories really aren't that terrific.
If I'm writing and a chapter isn't coming, I just move ahead.
I did know that the book would end with a mind-boggling trial, but I didn't know exactly how it would turn out. I like a little suspense when I am writing, too.
In my office in Florida I have, I think, 30 manuscript piles around the room. Some are screenplays or comic books or graphic novels. Some are almost done. Some I'm rewriting. If I'm working with a co-writer, they'll usually write the first draft. And then I write subsequent drafts.
Hey. Not sure what’s going on-gonna go find out. Be careful and don’t do anything stupid. Don’t come after me-your better on your own. See you. F I sat on the edge of the bed, holding the note. Okay, so Fang had looked up vague in the dictionary and this was what it had said to write.
I think sometimes we give people a lot of credit just because they're writing nice sentences even if it isn't adding up to much.
The writing in Mission to Paris, sentence after sentence, page after page, is dazzling. If you are a John le Carr fan, this is definitely a novel for you.
Stop trying to write sentences and start trying to write stories.
When I write I pretend I'm telling a story to someone in the room and I don't want them to get up until I'm finished.