Miguel Ferrer Quotes

I have no problems or issues with screenwriting in general.

Every day, I learn something new. I think one of the most exciting things for a writer is to work on a TV show. It's like a novel. You have a really long time to develop and learn about the characters, and you can just really keep digging in deeper, every week.

When you have really good writing, you're compelled by the actors who are in it, and you may think it's the actors or the design or the filmmaking of it, but then you're like, 'Well, the base is a really rich story that these guys have created.'

If you're writing a screenplay from scratch, it involves a lot of creation.

Writing a novel is actually searching for victims. As I write I keep looking for casualties. The stories uncover the casualties.

For me, it's always about what's on the page. I have tremendous respect for writing. When you recognize good writing, and you're lucky enough to get it, like with 'Lost,' that's what I follow.

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.

Actors can be good, say all these beautiful, wonderful things - but where does it come from? It comes from the writers, and people kind of forget that sometimes.

As far as the creative side, the more I do this, the more I know that it's all about the writing. We don't always celebrate that enough, but without the writing, you can't do much. You got on a film sometimes, and it's sort of half-written, and they expect and think that the actor's job is to bring the extra part and the good part. It's not.

When you're writing for a show, you're writing part of the script. You have to tell the story.

I've always believed that the script is the boss.

So much emotion goes into writing fiction.

Sometimes I find it tiresome to write actions and describe the scene in a very intricate way so that every crew member understands where we are going - that I can find a little bit long and tiresome. But dialogue is just all my life. There's no way I could ever be challenged, not challenged, but I'm always so happy to write dialogue.

I had written a story. I wrote the story out of some desperation, really, and I didn't know I was writing a story, and it took me years. And when I finished, a friend of mine had the idea that the story should be read as a monologue in a theater.

The few times I've tried to write original screenplays, it's a difficult process because I just don't feel like I know the characters the way I know them after the year or two it takes to write a novel.

The written word is the basic of everything. Most important, the idea, and after that, the dialogue. You can rehash the dialogue as you go along, it 's disgraceful to have to do this, but now and again you have no choice.

I tend not to know what the plot is or the story is or even the theme. Those things come later, for me.

When I write a screenplay - and I think this is true for a lot of people - you direct the movie. That's what writing a screenplay is.

I don't really set out to explore grand themes. I set out to tell a story. And one I have to be able to imagine right through.

I've only ever taken a playwriting class, but I like creative writing and writing screenplays.

I don't really have a drive toward being a director at all. Not that I wouldn't rule it out, but I just don't think my instincts lie necessarily in a very visual way. But I am very interested in storytelling, narrative and character development, so writing is something that I absolutely want to do.

For me, when working on a film or play or television show, everything for me starts with the screenplay and I am devoted to that and that is what I work from. Any research I do or any preparation I do on my own is all ultimately in service of that.

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.

Writing sketches, you're also learning about a journey and characters, and you translate that to bigger things.

A script is a unique literary form, because it's not the end product; it's a blueprint. If you're not thinking of that end product, there's going to be a disconnect.