I think that if you have a knack for storytelling, and you work really hard at it, you'll have a chance to tap into something deep. But the fact remains that good sentences are hard won. Any writer worth a lick knows constructing a sentence, a paragraph, or a chapter is hard work.
I can be just as effective with a quick retort or a one-liner than with a big paragraph.
Today I must write a paragraph or a page better than I did yesterday.
I have such bad memories, sitting in the back of a classroom, being told, you know, everybody is going to read a paragraph, and skipping ahead to my paragraph and being mortified and trying to read it enough times so that I wouldn't stutter and stammer, getting called on, even in high school.
Sometimes when I'm really enjoying a book, I'll read a sentence or paragraph and just think - how can someone's head be wired in such a way that they'd come up with that?
When I write for 'n+1,' I begin by doing a lot of reading, to try to convince myself I'm not stupid. Then I scribble down a paragraph here, a paragraph there, when a notion strikes. Then I see if I can arrange those notions in a way that yields an argument.
For me, a paragraph in a novel is a bit like a line in a poem. It has its own shape, its own music, its own integrity.
I'll get a three-page letter and the last paragraph says 'I know you'll never read this, but here's my number.' I love to call those people because the first thing they say is, 'Governor, I didn't mean everything I said in the letter about you.'
I huff and puff and struggle with every sentence, paragraph and page - sometimes every word as well.
I don't have problems starting writing. I have problems stopping. I'm one of the last dads to arrive at school to collect the kids, because I want to get this paragraph just right.
With film, you have very limited tools to convey subjectivity - voiceover, the camera's point of view, good acting - but even the very best actor in the world is crude by comparison with what you can do in a written paragraph.
