William Devane Quotes

You just drop a character like this that and the other and it's done.

Well, I must tell you I write the scripts very close to the bone. So I'm writing episode seven now and couldn't tell you what happens in episode eight.

The main thing that I learned from editing is that most people, when they're making a film, they start too early into the story. They will try to set up the characters, they will try to establish things before the plot actually starts.

There are times that you have a plot in your head, but then you find that the characters don't want to do that. When you're looking at the story from the outside, you can create whatever twists and turns you want. But when you're writing, you're inside the characters' heads, and you see that they may be motivated to do something different.

I think what 'Emmerdale' are excited about is that my exit storyline is the catalyst for other storylines for characters like Chrissie and Lawrence.

It's all just one film to me. Just different chapters.

I'm a great planner, so before I ever write chapter 1, I work out what happens in every chapter and who the characters are. I usually spend a year on the outline.

I don't need all that much - I just need to know who my characters are and what kind of jam they're going to get into, and I'll write myself out of their jam.

With a pilot, there's a lot of information that gets packed into 46 minutes or whatever it is. Usually what happens is that, throughout the season, you get to spend a little more quality time with the characters and get to know them a bit better, whether it's based on circumstance or relationships they've created with other characters.

You've either got to find a way to make your continuing characters insteresting without making them maudlin or overwrought, or you've got to put more emphasis on the suspects.

I can't say too much about it because I don't know a lot. We're not told what's in store for our characters until we turn up to shoot the episode. But it's fair to say that Betty and her son bring a brand new mystery to the street and they will be around all season.

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

I felt they had really moved the characters in a direction that was very interesting. The family had really felt the impact of what had happened to the.

Certain writers look down their noses at plot, and I think I might have been one of them until I tried it.

When your protagonist bores you, you're in trouble.

If you don't spend the time you need on developing characters and finding stories, complicated stories, the audience gets tired because they think they're seeing the same thing again and again.

There's an arc to an action sequence, and you need to come out the other end knowing your character better, and maybe the story has moved forward in a compelling way.

'Homeland' does have that ability to tear the rug out from under you.

It's a good thing about George R.R. Martin: He's prepared to kill off the main guys. You don't get the feeling that the good guy is going to last forever, like James Bond.

When I'm plotting out a book, I use a storyboard - I'll have maybe three lines across on the storyboard and just start working through the plot line. I always know where relationships will go and how the book is going to end.

What I have to outline is action and plot because I'm not particularly good at that.

Typically, I have a fairly good grip on the plot of a suspense novel before I set about writing it. I must know beforehand how the mystery ultimately will be solved.

With TV season structures - and I'm a huge TV watcher - you look at shows like 'Breaking Bad,' which is my favorite show of all time, and 'The Sopranos,' which is pretty high up there as well, and there was that thing where, every season, Walter White would go up a level, but there would be a new bad.

We have a rule: if you're killing off a series regular, you have to tell them first. If you're killing off a person temporarily, you have to warn them before the script comes out.

While I had no intention of ending the series after 'The Spellmans Strike Again,' I did close many doors in that book and, with the fifth one, I was opening a lot of doors and not finding anything behind them and then opening another door and another until I found something. It was a while before I found my stride.