James Clavell Quotes

Don't mistake a good setup for a satisfying conclusion - many beginning writers end their stories when the real story is just ready to begin.

I think stories do have an ending. I think they need to have an ending eventually because that is a story: a beginning, middle and end. If you draw out the end too long, I think storytelling can get tired.

The reason I choose the stories I choose - and it's why it takes me so long to find ideas - is that I'm looking for that very thing. I want an idea that begins, I want a middle that is compelling and will bring readers along, and I definitely want an ending.

Because I come from the theater, I use the images of the theater and of movies a great deal when I write. I see the story in my head. I have to break down the outline of a story first. I have to know where I'm going. Usually I have a good beginning and a good ending, and then I think, "Now I have to find my way through it."

I don't ignore continuity, and try my best to stick as closely to the current status quo as possible, but it's not my primary concern when I start a story.

Stories work, if they have a beginning, middle and end.

Stop trying to write sentences and start trying to write stories.

I don't ever want to impose something on the story. I want the story to tell me.

I love that there's a beginning, middle and end to a film and you can craft what the whole journey is going to look like.

The story was such that I couldn't make a graceful ending and then make a graceful new beginning. I could have, but I didn't want to. So, it isn't the most graceful way of writing a story. This new story is, I think, is pretty good stuff. I'm pleased with it anyway.

A story really isn't truly a story until it reaches its climax and conclusion.

One of the reasons I started working at 'South Park,' actually, was that I wanted to learn how to structure things and how to tell a story.

I never know, when I start writing a story, what's going to happen, or how it will all get sorted out.

The inciting incident is how you get (characters) to do something. It's the doorway through which they can't return, you know. The story takes care of the rest.

What's important on a comedy show, or any show, is that some stories have to go somewhere. There have to be ends to the beginnings and middles you create. But sometimes it's like a way station on the highway, then the actual thing doesn't have to be this giant, climactic, life-changing, game-changing thing.

Our story has three parts: a beginning, a middle, and an end. And although this is the way all stories unfold, I still can't believe that ours didn't go on forever.

Plot is the knowing of destination.

I don't start a story until I know where it's going to end.

Every story teaches me how to write it. Unfortunately, it doesn't teach me how to write the next one.

When asked for advice by beginners. Know your ending, I say, or the river of your story may finally sink into the desert sands and never reach the sea.

All of the good movies are based on how that story was told. And you cannot do it with a bad script, that's for sure, no matter who.

A performance can have amazing visuals and special effects, but it has to tell a good story, even if that story isn't original.

My stories do have plot. They're not just scattered language; they're controlled, toward an end.

I write any sort of rubbish which will cover the main outlines of the story, then I can begin to see it.

Do not start a story unless you have an ending in mind. You can change the story's ending if you wish, but you should always have a destination.