Nicholas Meyer Quotes

A novel, of course, is a fully self-contained work of art. You pick it up off the shelf, open it, and there it is - a whole universe waiting for you to enter. A screenplay is just a blueprint for making a movie. Until the movie is actually filmed, the script really means nothing.

With screenplays and teleplays, they are mapped, really, in the blueprint of a finished product, which is something you're going to watch on a screen. But a book is an end to itself, really.

A script is a unique literary form, because it's not the end product; it's a blueprint. If you're not thinking of that end product, there's going to be a disconnect.

Jerry picked up the technique of visualizing the story as a movie scenario; and whenever he gave me a script, I would see it as a screenplay. That was the technique that Jerry used, and I just picked it up.

Writing a screenplay is so spare, it kind of reminded me that I really should celebrate what I can do in a book, which is description: for example, places, people, locations.

First hand on 'Go Goa Gone' I learnt how to write on final drafts, how the process works.

For me, writing is a part of directing. It's the first stage of directing.

As an actor, I give 60 days to act in a film, but the writer takes nearly two to three years to create a story.

I like movies. I've written screenplays as a sort of procrastination thing for me. Like I'll work for a couple months on this idea that's been kicking around and then like 30 pages in I'll just go try a novel because it's a lot easier. That's what I know. So why am I killing myself?

At the end of the day you do have to write a short novel beforehand, called a script, before you can make a movie.

Every film starts with the script.

I structure the scripts and work on them on films and work on scenes with writers and but I haven't written a script myself, I really respect what they do and I'm fortunate I get to work with people that I really enjoy working with and we all kind of spitball and work together on these things, but I haven't written a script yet.

I have no problems or issues with screenwriting in general.

I do take this insane pleasure in world-building. I get the world in my head, but I have to make sure everyone else gets it.

Hollywood has its own way of telling stories. I was just telling stories that I was familiar with. And it's what I want to do in the future: I want to take my audio cinema and put it on the screen.

When I first started writing, I wrote a book called 'Bruiser,' and it was pretty much set in Chicago.

At first, I see pictures of a story in my mind. Then creating the story comes from asking questions of myself. I guess you might call it the 'what if - what then' approach to writing and illustration.

If you're writing a screenplay, you need to be prepared to let go: there's a good chance the words you write aren't going to be the ones that end up on screen.

My first novel, 'Sacrifice,' was set on the Shetland Islands.

Pixar's short films convinced Disney that if the company could produce memorable characters within five minutes, then the confidence was there in creating a feature film with those abilities in story and character development.

Like every novelist, I fantasise about film. Novelists are not equipped to make a movie, in my opinion. They make their own movie when they write: they're casting, they're dressing the scene, they're working out where the energy of the scene is coming from, and they're also relying tremendously on the creative imagination of the reader.

I allowed the scriptwriter to come to my parties for research and it's a good thing he did otherwise I don't think Personal Services would've been so good.

I loved movies, but I can't remember ever really wanting to be an actress, and I certainly didn't imagine ever being in a movie. I think I wanted to be a writer.

The few times I've tried to write original screenplays, it's a difficult process because I just don't feel like I know the characters the way I know them after the year or two it takes to write a novel.

I tend to wait for true stories to mature into fiction. Most of my fiction grew out of a long-germinating real-life situation.