My main problem with fiction is that once my characters get moving, you just have to follow them along and get out of the way of the story, but sometimes they pull me in too many directions, and I need to focus.
'Deadline' is the story of a young man forced to discover who he is, and what's important in life, during the short span of his senior year in high school.
When I first heard 'A Christmas Story, the musical,' I thought, Oh, that could be really good. It just felt like it fit. Some films lend themselves well to other formats, some don't, but there are so many fantasy sequences in the film, and Ralphie's such a dreamer as a character, I thought they could really lend themselves to being set pieces.
I believe that everyone has a story, and it is important that we encourage all students to tell theirs.
I have an obligation as a writer to tell a story as interestingly as possible, but with integrity and not inserting false drama... I'm looking to be subtle, but being a wordsmith does not interest me - I want to communicate.
I love traveling. But I haven't had big, transformative experiences while on the road. When I go out on the road, it's to go out and get a story or do a promotional event.
In 'Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell,' I wanted to create the most convincing story of magic and magicians that I could.
I wanted to write a story about colonization and about Hawaii. I went to college right at the height of identity politics, and that's how I always read 'The Tempest,' for example.
Jewish, black, Filipino, whatever the specificity is, it's specificity that makes a good story. And I think people are tired of seeing the same old shtick on network television. It's just a group of white people hanging out talking about their jobs. Who cares? We've seen that.
I'm not like a Sears Catalog of ideas. I don't have that many ideas. I've more or less written them over the years. Usually, I come up with a situation or a character, and it rattles around in my head until the story or the plot emerges.
Actually, I met a lot of directors and most of them have that fantasy to make a silent movie because for directors it's the purest way to tell a story. It's about creating images that tell a story and you don't need dialogue for that.
Readers want to see, hear, feel, smell the action of your story, even if that action is just two people having a quiet conversation.
It's important to tell the story you're telling in the right way, which might involve black people or people of whatever heritage or ethnicity - or it might not.
Once you become the story off-screen, you are less likely to be the onscreen one.
There are two separate scripts for 'Mockingjay' parts one and two. It's definitely one story, but there are two totally distinct and separate scripts.
I don't have writer's block, really. I do have times when I can't get the lead, and that is the only part of the story which I have serious trouble with. I don't write a word of the article until I have the lead. It just sets the whole tone - the whole point of view.
Obviously, you're trying to peel through 20 centuries of theology, speculations, church doctrine and storytelling. I'm trying to get back to the absolute basic story of who was Jesus, what did he say, what was he teaching, and what did he do.
I write and write and write, and then I edit it down to the parts that I think are amusing, or that help the storyline, or I'll write a notebook full of ideas of anecdotes or story points, and then I'll try and arrange them in a way that they would tell a semi-cohesive story.
I was very pleased with the way that the show ended creatively and personally. It just feels like we've completed the piece. And now to be able to step back a little bit and look at it from beginning to end, I feel good about the complete story that is 'Battlestar Galactica.'
So many features at Sundance seemed to be powered more on the director's need to be a director than any particular story.
When you think about archaeology, archaeology is the only field that allows us to tell the story of 99 percent of our history prior to 3,000 B.C. and writing.
I could type in a closet and be fine. It's just a matter of cocooning myself. Just me and the story.
What I do know is that with a celebrity's death comes an avalanche of media, and in that media is most often another death - it takes a life that is filled with complicated talent, hope, success and drive and reduces it to the 'story.'
If you can remove a female character from your plot and replace her with a sexy lamp and your story still works, you're a hack.
Writing for theatre is certainly different to writing an essay or any other kind of fiction or prose: it's physical. You're also telling a story, but sometimes the story isn't exactly what you intend; maybe you uncover something you had no idea you were going to uncover.
TV has gotten perhaps better than your average film script, but at the same time, it's fun to give it all you've got for a few months and produce a story.
History is the story of events, with praise or blame.
I always think that's neat, when you can hear a story told from different points of view, different perspectives.
What I've learned is that the most troublesome people don't tell you 100% of the story, and keep some facts to themselves. They just don't give you the full picture, and that's very worrisome to me.
I think a good story's a good story and a good character's a good character.
I have to say when a man lives for himself, it's hard to live with him. That's pretty much the story of all my divorces. I've been making records since I was 22 and done things my way, and it's hard for me to compromise. And of course, to have a successful relationship, one has to compromise. Sometimes I'm not good at it.
I don't like to watch myself. I can't get into the story; I'm too critical.
I'd get bored if I... if I had to do a movie, and there was no love story in it, I would just be bored. I mean, I would do it, but it would be kind of boring.
I was very excited to do 'The Witches.' It was with one of my favorite directors, Nick Roeg, and I loved his work from 'Don't Look Now' and 'Eureka.' So I was very excited to work with him. The story was a very subversive fairy tale by Roald Dahl, and a fantastic part.
There's still a massive inequality between the genders. If you look at the trajectory of a male actor's career, there's no hesitation or hiatus. But women after the age of 35 to 40 are rarely placed in the centre of the story.
The thing is that my father's story helps to communicate what was at stake with my mother, and my mother and father had so much a partnership that his story is integral to her story, as her story is to his - really, her story can't be told without his story.
