I'm big on having a blistering pace. That's one of the hallmarks of what I do, and that's not easy. I never blow up cars and things like that, so it's something else that keeps the suspense flowing. I try not to write a chapter that isn't going to turn on the movie projector in your head.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of maintaining a fast pace in storytelling to keep the audience engaged.
James Patterson highlights his commitment to a rapid narrative style that creates suspense and excitement. By focusing on a blistering pace, he aims to ensure that every chapter contributes to a cinematic experience, igniting the imagination of readers and keeping them captivated from beginning to end.
In practice
In a writing workshop, I might use this quote to inspire students about the importance of pacing in their stories.
Let's face it: Most of us don't realize it, but we are failing our kids as reading role models. The best role models are in the home: brothers, fathers, grandfathers; mothers, sisters, grandmothers. Moms and dads, it's important that your kids see you reading. Not just books - reading the newspaper is good, too.
When I was 26, I wrote my first mystery, 'The Thomas Berryman Number', and it was turned down by, I don't know, 31 publishers. Then it won an Edgar for Best First Novel. Go figure.
Fashion must be the most intoxicating release from the banality of the world.
Since the model he so faithfully copies is not going to be hung up next to the picture... it is of no interest whether it is an accurate copy of the model.
People say that I could sing the phone book and make it sound good.
The world concerns me only in so far as I feel a certain indebtedness and duty toward it because I have walked this earth for thirty years, and, out of gratitude, want to leave some souvenir in the shape of drawings or pictures β not made to please a certain taste in art, but to express a sincere human feeling.
One can be a great poet and be politically stupid.
This element of surprise or mystery β the detective element as it is sometimes rather emptily called β is of great importance in a plot. It occurs through a suspension of the time-sequence; a mystery is a pocket in time, and it occurs crudely, as in "Why did the queen die?" and more subtly in half-explained gestures and words, the true meaning of which only dawns pages ahead. Mystery is essential to a plot, and cannot be appreciated without intelligence.
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