I do this so you cannot help but hear. A wise man views a moonless night with fear. Patrick Rothfuss More Quotes by Patrick Rothfuss More Quotes From Patrick Rothfuss Each book needs a good beginning and a good ending. People get pissed off when you don't close things off properly at the end. Patrick Rothfuss pissed-offbookpeople I think one of the biggest mistakes you can make as a writer is to follow your initial [writing] plan too stringently. A story needs room to grow and evolve. Patrick Rothfuss mistakewritingthinking When you read a fantasy novel part of the fun is getting to explore a new world. Everyone knows that. But I believe the same is true about characters. You can explore interesting people in the same way that you explore a town or a culture. Patrick Rothfuss funcharacterbelieve The myth stems from the belief that writing is some mystical process. That it's magical. That it abides by its own set of rules different from all other forms of work, art, or play.But that's bullshit. Plumbers don't get plumber's block. Teachers don't get teacher's block. Soccer players don't get soccer block. What makes writing different? Nothing. The only difference is that writers feel they have a free pass to give up when writing is hard. Patrick Rothfuss teachersoccerart It's easier to write about heartbreak after you've had your heart broken. You have more material to draw from, you can extrapolate from your own experiences and make reasonable assumptions about how your characters would feel and act. Patrick Rothfuss heartwritingcharacter Now the truth is, writing is a great way to deal with a lot of difficult emotional issues. It can be very therapeutic, but that's best done in your journal, or on your blog if you're an exhibitionist. Trying to put a bunch of *specific* stuff from your personal life into your story usually just isn't appropriate unless you're writing a memoir or a personal essay or something of the sort. Patrick Rothfuss issuesemotionalwriting We have more brilliant fantasy novels than brilliant fantasy movies. Movies and TV are done by committee. But with a novel, it's really just one person running the show. That allows for a clarity and unity of vision that's pretty unique, artistically. Patrick Rothfuss fantasy-novelsuniquerunning I think authors are just realizing there's no real reason to feel limited to a narrow set of genre rules in their writing. There's no reason a mystery novel can't have fantastic elements in it. Similarly, there's no reason why your epic fantasy series can't have elements of a mystery. Patrick Rothfuss epicrealwriting Also, worldbuilding touches all aspects of your story. It touches plot and character as well. If you don't know the culture your character comes from, how can you know what he's really like? You must know your characters on a much deeper level than you would if you just shrugged your way into a cookie cutter fantasy world. Patrick Rothfuss levelscharacterway As a writer, I first felt successful before I was published. Patrick Rothfuss feltsuccessfulfirsts Humor is hard, hard, hard. And if you fail with humor, you don't fail halfway. You drop the ball humor-wise and everyone notices. Patrick Rothfuss ballsfailingwise I can sell anything to anyone. That is actually my superpower. I am really good at negotiating and persuading. Patrick Rothfuss persuadingsuperpowernegotiating I don't think people need to know much about me to understand the book, or to enjoy it. The book stands by itself. Over the last several years, my life has been all about writing these books, but the books aren't about my life. Patrick Rothfuss writingbookthinking You can't write good characters if you can't imagine what it's like being in another person's skin. And if you can imagine that, you naturally want other people's lives to be better. You want to make that happen. Patrick Rothfuss writingcharacterpeople I have no balance. My life is a hot mess. Patrick Rothfuss balancelife-ishot We try to spread the word about the charity by doing fun little stunts to catch people's attention. Like when Hank Green did a music video for us. Patrick Rothfuss funtryingpeople For people who don't know, the fundraiser works like this: people donate to Worldbuilders and they're automatically entered to win geeky swag in the lottery. We're just starting week two and we're already giving away more than $40,000 of books and games. Patrick Rothfuss swagwinningbook What I'd love more than anything is for Worldbuilders to continue to grow and become entangled in all the different corners of the geek community. Patrick Rothfuss geekcommunitydifferent In brief, worldbuilding is different than setting in my opinion. Setting is a room. A backdrop. It's scenery. But without good worldbuilding, you can't have realistic feeling scenery. You can't have cool, unique backdrops for your story. Patrick Rothfuss uniquefeelingsrooms If I talk about what I'm good at, I seem like I'm a conceited egomaniac. Patrick Rothfuss egomaniacsconceitedseems
