Jerry B. Jenkins Quotes

If you consistently write 'The sun set' rather than 'The sun sank slowly in the bright western sky,' your story will move three times as fast. Of course, there are times you want the longer version for atmosphere - but not many. Wordiness not only kills pace; it bores readers.

Directing my own writing, I see that I talk way too much, and everything can happen much sooner, with much less said about it.

My stories are very compact. I want them to say the most complex things in the simplest way.

I'm short and to the point.

I call a fig a fig, a spade a spade.

When the truth is spoken, it doesn't need to be adorned. It just needs to be simply stated, and often it only needs to be said once.

I don't like to not call a spade a spade.

Too much detail can bog down any story. Enough with the history of gunpowder, the geology of Hawaii, the processes of whaling, and cactus and tumbleweed.

I don't want to be mysterious.

In saying what is obvious, never choose cunning. Yelling works better.

I say what I need to, not a whole lot more.

It does not require many words to speak the truth.

I've simplified much more in my writing. I say what I've got to say, not in metaphor.

With me, everything's right on the table.

I've never been a fan of euphemism.

A good opening and a good ending make for a good film provide they come close together.

We're not big on irony in Jamaica, sarcasm and double-talk. We tend to say things plainly, sometimes to the point of boredom.

Less is almost always better than more. Short words, short sentences, short speeches.

I speak as simply as possible because the issue is too great to be obscured by eloquence.

Screenwriting is about condensing.

In books, you can just wallow in dialogue, and you can just wallow in written words. In screenplays, every line has to serve the purpose of the line that's implied before it and the line that's implied after it. Maybe five lines have to do the work of fifty lines.

I'm saying to you that one of the great characteristics of the great American, the American people, is our historic ability to be straightforward, plainspoken, say what we mean, and mean what we say.

I have always liked to speak to people very directly.

I don't talk around issues.

It is very tough to make a short film. It's like writing a short story, which is tougher than writing a novel. You can't afford to faff around; you can't indulge. You have to get to the point.