Steve Erickson Quotes about Character

There have been times I thought that when I got a certain point in the story, a certain character was going to do a certain thing, only to get to that point and have the character make clear that he or she doesn't want

There have been times I thought that when I got a certain point in the story, a certain character was going to do a certain thing, only to get to that point and have the character make clear that he or she doesn't want to do that at all. That long phone conversation I thought the character was going to have? He hangs up the phone before the other person answers, and twenty pages of dialog I had half written in my head go out the window.

Steve Erickson

Character, Phones, Long

"Steve Erickson and Zeroville: An Interview with a True American Original". Interview With Jeff VanderMeer, www.amazonbookreview.com. November 27, 2007.

Before I begin a novel I have a strong sense of at least one central character and how the story begins, and a more vague sense of where things may wind up, but at some point, if the novel is any good at all, the story and characters take on lives of their own and take over the book, and the writer has to be open to that.

Steve Erickson

Strong, Book, Character

To me experimental fiction ultimately is about the experiment and I'm not interested in experiments for their own sake, and if anything I've always steered a bit clear of that kind of thing, because it seems gimmicky to play around with text rather than do the work of telling a story and creating characters.

Steve Erickson

Character, Creating, Play

"Steve Erickson and Zeroville: An Interview with a True American Original". Interview With Jeff VanderMeer, www.amazonbookreview.com. November 27, 2007.