Thursday, July 28, 2011

inside/out


Everyone knows there are few things that are actually truer or more revealing than fiction. My characters do a lot of editorializing on my part, I think.

I thought it would be interesting to pick a line from my books and say, this is actually ME talking here.

Today, I'm taking lines from my first four books. Maybe tomorrow, I'll pick lines (very different ones) from my next four.

Here goes:

Troy Stotts, in Ghost Medicine (2008), talking about his best friend Tom Buller:

He knew I didn’t really like getting gifts.

Jonah Vickers, in In the Path of Falling Objects (2009), talking about leaving home with his younger brother, Simon:

I believe we knew all along what we were trying to find wasn’t there.  

Jack Whitmore, from The Marbury Lens (2010), ranting about how awkward it was to be a teen: 

Being sixteen was never comfortable, cool, or even remotely humorous for me.  

Stark McClellan, from Stick (October, 2011), talking about hiding in his work:

I tried to stay busy, to make myself invisible if I could.  

...Maybe tomorrow I'll post four lines from my next four novels.