Quote #1

'I have this thing for generating character-oriented plots, where you look at a character and say 'What's the worst thing I could do to this guy?' I've found that extremely fruitful.' Unverified quote; similar to 'I have a catch-phrase to describe my plot-generation technique -- 'What's the worst possible thing I can do to these people?'' which is found in the FAQ of Bujold's official Web site.

More from Lois McMaster Bujold

  1. ''Write what you know' is a tautology. You have no choice -- you have to write what you know, and in order to write something new, you have…
  2. 'It's a bizarre but wonderful feeling, to arrive dead center of a target you didn't even know you were aiming for.'
  3. All great human deeds both consume and transform their doers. Consider an athlete, or a scientist, or an artist, or an independent business…
  4. 'I've described my usual writing process as scrambling from peak to peak on inspiration through foggy valleys of despised logic. Inspiratio…
  5. Any community's arm of force - military, police, security - needs people in it who can do necessary evil, and yet not be made evil by it. T…
  6. With all this manure around, there's got to be a pony someplace.
  7. Check your assumptions. In fact, check your assumptions at the door.
  8. You can't choose between evil and evil, in the dark, by logic. You can only cling to some safety line of principle.

All Lois McMaster Bujold quotes