Ethan Coen Quotes

As a storyteller, when you're writing a movie and when you're directing, you want to keep people entertained. That's the whole point, right? It has to be entertaining.

Where radio is different than fiction is that even mediocre fiction needs purpose, a driving question.

I think good art should always be entertaining, or at least give pleasure of some sort. And my chief goal as a writer has always been to tell a good story and give my readers a good time.

There's a saying in the movie industry that if your movie is about what you actually think it's about, you're in big trouble. I think it's the same with books.

A good story is a good story, whatever the medium.

I'm very good at plot.

You set out to tell a good story. You don't do it because there is a deep message involved, because the movie is almost always bad when you do that. Your job No. 1 is for it to be entertaining, and if it's inspiring, that is great, too.

First and foremost, it's got to be on the page. It starts with the writing.

If we can continue to tell stories where fans don't know what will happen next, I think that will be a plus in this 'Divas Revolution.'

Without a good story, a franchise won't work.

I try to mix the characters up and not be second guessed by the audience.

It doesn't matter if these characters are supposed to be together forever: if their chemistry gets stale, you want somebody to die, you want to put somebody in a coma, you want to write them off the show - anything to save you.

I enjoy both TV writing and novel writing, and they are very similar. The goal is to entertain and amuse the audience, and I subscribe to this P.G. Wodehouse piece of advice: "Try to give pleasure with every sentence."

And if Hollywood has taught us anything, it's that cool props and special effects are not enough. Story comes first. Everything depends on story.

I try not to repeat a story. I try not to repeat an emotion. I want it to be all sort of new for the viewers and to challenge myself as a writer, so there's always pressure. What else can you come up with?

But basically, I'm trying to write a fun story.

The biggest challenge of my career, which is something that authors of genre fiction face all the time, is writing something fresh and new and at the same time meeting reader expectations.

Fans want to see a story with characters, and they want to see a story.

I always try to make my characters people, and yet I always want to entertain.

In older science fiction stories, they had to rely on storytelling as opposed to spectacle. The old run of the 'Twilight Zone,' the star was the writing and the storytelling, and the characters and the twists and the cleverness in the setup and payoff and execution.

My writing has always been what you call 'narrative fiction' in the sense that it's got very strong plots and twists at the end.

It was unpredictable, good storytelling that brought you back each week.

I love sci-fi, especially when it thrives on a thought-provoking story, rather than explosions.

The suspense of a novel is not only in the reader, but in the novelist, who is intensely curious about what will happen to the hero.

As far as what readers can expect with 'Maybe Someday,' I'm not the type of writer who writes to educate or inform my readers. I simply write to entertain them.