John Irving
John Irving
John Winslow Irving is an American novelist and Academy Award-winning screenwriter...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth2 March 1942
CountryUnited States of America
actual characters extent films mind movies party plots several stars
To her, ... celebrities at the party were not movie stars but the actual characters they'd played. Unfortunately, these movies had overlapped in her mind -- to the extent that she'd merged the plots of several different films into one incomprehensible epic. ...
cast characters huge layers plot
Plot, plot and more plot. Many layers to the storytelling and a huge cast of characters that are very well developed,
believe character plot
I believe in plot, in development of character, in the effect of the passage of time, in a good story - better than something you might find in the newspaper. And I believe a novel should be as complicated and involved as you're capable of making it.
character giving people
You don't want to be ungenerous toward people who give you prizes, but it is never the social or political message that interests me in a novel. I begin with an interest in a relationship, a situation, a character.
character thinking trying
I always begin with a character or characters, and then try to think up as much action for them as possible.
character stories fans
I've always been a fan of the 19th century novel, of the novel that is plotted, character-driven, and where the passage of time is almost as central to the novel as a major minor character, the passage of time and its effect on the characters in the story.
character differences important
The main character and the most important character are not always the same person - you have to know the difference.
character effort world
The characters in my novels, from the very first one, are always on some quixotic effort of attempting to control something that is uncontrollable - some element of the world that is essentially random and out of control.
character interest situation
I begin with an interest in a relationship, a situation, a character.
busy
The inshore lifeboat was very busy with 39 jobs, and the all-weather lifeboat had 11.
existed orphanages orphans
Do you really want to go back to those times when orphanages existed and when many orphans were not adopted?
fiction freedom gives great happened holds life special tyranny
I don't think I've had a very interesting life, and I feel that is a great liberation. That gives me great freedom as a fiction writer. Nothing that happened holds any special tyranny over me.
forming groups members ourselves people watch
I think better of our behaviour as individuals than I do when we see ourselves as members of a group. It's when people start forming groups that we have to watch our backs.
writer
I sometimes think that what I do as a writer is make a kind of colouring book, where all the lines are there, and then you put in the colour.