Literary Birthday – 30 June – Paul Tremblay

Happy Birthday, Paul Tremblay, born on 30 June 1971.

Paul Tremblay Quotes

1. I think a whole lot of writing advice is not great because it’s so subjective. But the one thing I do try to tell people is that it’s okay to be patient. (Horror Homeroom)
2. I would much rather have a book deal than not. But it is a stressful thing. You have to have a novel in at a certain time. You have to write when you don’t feel like writing. I can’t afford writing rituals and waiting for the muse to show up. If you have a deadline, you have to write. (Horror Homeroom)
3. Somewhere along the way, when I first started writing, I was like, ‘Okay, I’m a horror writer’, and that was the badge I wore. (Horror Homeroom)
4. Because I was never a trained writer… I had to figure out the way that works for me on my own. That is not to say I haven’t had help along the way from many editors and writers. I am in debt of many. (The Alembic)
5. I do think I approach writing in perhaps a more analytical manner than most. I am not a writer who can just spew out a quick, rough first draft (I wish I could). I write in small increments. I aim for 300-500 new words a day. The next day I begin by editing and tweaking what I wrote in the days before. (The Alembic)
6. If it’s a novel, I usually go back to the beginning of the chapter and then edit and add. I creep my way forward that way. I do no skip ahead to write future scenes. I write the book or story in the order in which I think things will happen (if that makes sense). By the time I have a full draft, I’ve already edited and re-edited most of the manuscript. Of course, I edit it again when I’m done with a draft. (The Alembic)
7. I enjoy teaching, generally. For my writing I find it’s a great daily lesson in character and voice. (The Alembic)
8. If we boil down a horror story to the reveal of a terrible/horrific truth, my favourite horror narratives are the ones that ask the tough questions after the reveal: What are the characters going to do now? What decisions will they make? What are the consequences? Do they know the consequences? How do they live through this? How does anybody live through this? Those are the questions I always ask of my characters. (The Alembic)
9. I feel like I’ve always been playing catch-up. I mention that because for the first 20 years of my life, that first chunk of my formative life, what I knew of story structure was film. (LARB)
10. Even though body horror and violence are very different, I’ll put them in the same bucket for now: I want to explore the experience of bystanders and witnesses, because like the victims, they’ll never be the same. I want to root things in reality, so while there’s humour, I definitely want readers to be disturbed. Sometimes you have to go there. You can’t whitewash it. (Publisher’s Weekly)
11. I usually write a summary for my novels before I work on the story proper. This time I had to, as my publisher wanted 30 pages and the summary before they could make an offer on the book. I was happy to oblige. (Writer’s Digest)
12. Read. Read, read, read. Read widely in and outside of your genre and/or comfort zone. More specific to the act of writing, when you get feedback or edits, give yourself 24 hours before your respond. I’ve found I’m much more able to be welcoming and objective about the feedback after that elapsed time. (Writer’s Digest)

Paul Tremblay is an American author and editor of horror, dark fantasy, crime, and science fiction. He has won the Bram Stoker, British Fantasy, Sheridan Le Fanu,, and Massachusetts Book awards. Tremblay is the New York Times bestselling author of many novels, including The Cabin at the End of the World, Horror Movie: A Novel, The Beast You Are, The Pallbearers Club, Survivor Song, Growing Things and Other Stories, and A Head Full of Ghosts, and the hardboiled crime novels The Little Sleep and No Sleep Till Wonderland. His essays and short fiction have appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, and numerous “year’s best” anthologies. Follow him on Instagram.

Source for photograph: Author’s Website

by Amanda Patterson
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