Sarah Waters Quotes

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

I cut up loads. I always want everything shorter, shorter, shorter.

The lessons learned in journalism also apply. Writing for NPR has taught me to cut a piece in half and then in half again - without losing the essence. Apply that to the swollen prose of a bulky novel and you might reveal a beautiful work.

There is but one art, to omit! Oh, if I knew how to omit I would ask no other knowledge. A man who knows how to omit would make an Iliad of a daily paper.

I think in most cases, unless you're writing about a character who is garrulous, you say what you've got to say and then get out. Those little conjunctions, those little turnaround words help you do it. That's the way I like to write: I get rid of things rather than add them.

My favorite form is the short story. From an aesthetics stand point you really have to pare down to the bone. You can't write a throw-away scene.

It is not hard to compose, but what is fabulously hard is to leave the superfluous notes under the table.

I can always make things longer than I intend for them to be, but cutting things down is just brutal. It's like cutting off your fingers every time you lose a word.

My goal is to strip things down so that you need just the right amount of words or shape to convey what you need to convey. I like editing. I like it very tight.

When I write, the story is always uppermost in my mind, and I feel that everything must be sacrificed to it. All elegant passages, all the curious details, all the so-called beautiful writing - if they are not truly relevant to what I am trying to say, then they have to go.

A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.

Advertising is the art of the tiny. You have to tell a complete a story and deliver a complete message in a very encapsulated form. It disciplines you to cut away extraneous information.

Screenwriting is about condensing.

If you have to go back and spell-check the text you're about to send, you're saying too much.

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.

The key for me with 'Star Wars' is to stay in their world. Don't get in the way of what is already known and what works. I think of the basic nature of the filmmaking process that worked so well for the original trilogy. No stylistic flights of fancy for the sake of showing off. Tell the story, get the shot, get the performances, and move on.

I kind of hate over-explanation in comics.

I do try and keep my scripts quite economical.

In short stories it is better to say not enough than to say too much, because, because--I don't know why.

Great writers know what to cut out. It's the same in life. Clear ambitions. Clear relationships. This is the stuff of good story.

The most important lesson in the writing trade is that any manuscript is improved if you cut away the fat.

I usually write very few stage directions. I think a lot of that is a waste of time. The art of screenwriting is in its terseness, saying a lot with a little. I have no patience when I read a script where the writer describes this guy and what he's wearing and his glasses and his hair.

It is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all that he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his readers is sure to skip them.

I always listen to what I can leave out.

The secret of play-writing can be given in two maxims: stick to the point, and, whenever you can, cut.