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" I think the reason teenage fiction is so popular with adults is that adults hunger for narrative just as badly as teenagers do. "
Patrick Ness
Think
Reason
Narrative
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" Online is such a brilliant, brilliant way to connect with young readers - even if they just want to tweet, 'Hey, I read your book!' - that, absolutely, I connect with that. But I also treat writing as solitary and keep it to myself as long as I can. "
Patrick Ness
Myself
Treat
Long
" 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. "
Patrick Ness
Horse
Great
Boy
" It's really important to me not to be a snob about age division or about genre or whatever. The story needs to be what the story needs to be. "
Patrick Ness
Story
Age
Important
" The books I like to read the most feel like they've been written by somebody who had to write them or go crazy. They had to get them out of their heads. I like that kind of urgency. "
Patrick Ness
Feel
Urgency
Crazy
" The world is cynical and sarcastic, but that doesn't mean that that's always the truth. "
Patrick Ness
World
Always
Truth
" The magical and fantastical isn't something I'm uncomfortable with in books, and I chafe slightly at the idea that a purely realist novel somehow has more value. "
Patrick Ness
More
Uncomfortable
Magical
" If you sing beautifully about nothing, no one will listen. If you sing badly about great stuff, no one will listen. Ideas are everywhere, but my theory is that a writer doesn't just think of an idea: they perform them. "
Patrick Ness
You
Great
Ideas
" Forget market or publishers or whatever. Just write with fire and joy, and in my own experience, those are the stories of mine people have wanted to read. "
Patrick Ness
Experience
People
Joy
" When I'm writing, I'm just in it and trying to figure out what seems best. "
Patrick Ness
Just
Writing
Seems
" In some ways. I always feel between worlds, between cultures, and I think that's not necessarily a bad place for a writer to be. Writers are kind of on the fringe anyway, observing, writing things down. I'm still mostly American, but it's a nice tension. "
Patrick Ness
American
Place
Writing
" If you're 15 and you tell someone a secret, they can put it up on Facebook. If you make a mistake, someone films it on their mobile and puts it up on YouTube. When you're 15, you deserve privacy. "
Patrick Ness
Deserve
Mistake
Someone
" No one wants to read an apologetic book. "
Patrick Ness
Apologetic
Book
Wants
" 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. "
Patrick Ness
Day
Add
End
" 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. "
Patrick Ness
Think
Story
Push
" I meet blind and partially-sighted young readers all the time, and it's a shock that so few books are available to them. "
Patrick Ness
Shock
Blind
Time
" I try to avoid describing one interpretation of my books. Of course I have an opinion. I have things I want to say, but I don't ever want to limit anybody, to have them say, 'Oh, he said this, so that's what it's about.' I'm happy people bring their own stuff to it. "
Patrick Ness
Opinion
People
Said
" How you leave the reader is so important - not the climax; I call it the 'exit feeling'. "
Patrick Ness
Feeling
Leave
Important
" I got tired of books where the boy is a bit thick and the girl's very clever. Why does it have to such an opposition? Why can't they be like the girls and boys that I know personally, who are equally funny and equally cross? Who get things equally wrong and are equally brave? And make the same mistakes? "
Patrick Ness
Tired
Mistakes
Girl
" We have lost the idea that something can be secret because it is valuable, not because it's shameful. If you share everything with everybody, what have you got for yourself? I tweet and I blog, but I save a lot for myself. Not because I am ashamed. "
Patrick Ness
Myself
I Am
Got
" 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. "
Patrick Ness
Down
Expectation
Way
" Your reader is interested in a guileless, fresh, first-time-we-talked-about-it way. What a great liberation that is. And teenagers, if you respect them, will follow you a lot further than adults will, without fear of being a genre that they may not like or have been told not to like. They just want a story. "
Patrick Ness
You
Great
Respect
" 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. "
Patrick Ness
Tell
You
Story
" Anything that anybody wants to give me is great! I've had folk songs, heavy metal songs, jewellery... I would never call anything any fan gives me weird, as it's how people express what they like about the books, what it means to them, and that's a wonderful thing. "
Patrick Ness
Me
Weird
People
" 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. "
Patrick Ness
Think
Moments
Happy
" I get tired of comedies where there are a bunch of funny guys and a beautiful woman who doesn't do anything funny. And I don't like books where there's a rough-and-tumble boy and a really clever, snotty girl. That's just not my experience with teenagers. "
Patrick Ness
Woman
Tired
Girl
" For me, when I start a novel, I only have a general sense of what I am going to do - usually three or four big scenes or something to which I can really respond emotionally. "
Patrick Ness
Start
Me
Going
" A book cannot apologize for what people may think it should be. It has to be authoritative. That's what I want as a reader - I want to be confident that the book will do its job. "
Patrick Ness
Think
People
May
" Folk tales and myths, they've lasted for a reason. We tell them over and over because we keep finding truths in them, and we keep finding life in them. "
Patrick Ness
Tell
Reason
Over
" The best characters in books are always the difficult ones, and why would you want to fall in love with someone difficult? The ones I'd fall in love with are the ones I'd definitely keep out of a book. "
Patrick Ness
Best
Love
Someone
" Limitations can be hugely creative and hugely inspiring - so long as they are the ones you choose for yourself. I will not allow anyone to take anything off my palette, but if I do, then within that, I can be creative. "
Patrick Ness
Long
You
Yourself