Karyn Kusama Quotes

I think anything goes in fiction as long as it fits within the interior logic of the work itself and is presented in a disciplined manner.

The technology is really where all of the changes have taken place, but the fundamentals of a good story being the basis of every good picture, and really the only basis still remains the rule, more so today, I think, because we've unfortunately weaned an audience from birth to kind of mindless movies.

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

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.

When I see things in the world that leap out at me, I want to make use of them in fiction. Maybe every writer does that. It just depends on what you claim or appropriate as yours.

Short stories are fiction's R & D department, and failed or less-than-conclusive experiments are not just to be expected but to be hoped for.

There is commerciality in storytelling, even in a film or a piece of literature. These things exist. That's why stories came to be: to hold attention and, while you're not looking, you'll get hopefully some nutritional value that the author has been working up. That's narrative; that's passing stuff down.

The marketplace tells us that good, visceral storytelling has a place. But there are lots of questions about the format that stories take.

It's been a while since I've written a novel aimed at the adult market, but I never sit down and say to myself, 'Okay, now I'm going to write something for us old folks.' I get gripped by an idea, and I go where the idea takes me.

I think that's what fiction writing is actually all about. It's about trying to solve problems in creative ways.

You can't visit readers where you think they are. You have to invite them home to where you are and try to lure them into your universe. That's the art of storytelling.

If you gather a lot of stuff, then you write it, write in scenes with dialogue. Somewhere in the middle, rising from all this research like strong metal towers, is your opinions.

I write the kind of stuff I'd like to watch.

I don't feel that I wanted to spend my whole writing life - which is my life - writing detective stories.

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.

The very best way I can make any reader believe in the nuts and bolts of an art form... is to know the mechanics, to make the characters grounded in convincing detail.

If you want to write serious books, you must be ready to break the forms.

Writers are in the entertainment business, and it gives me lots of pleasure to entertain my readers.

I don't really think in terms of making something that is going to be bought everywhere, because I don't read those things. My writing is a process in which I try my best to make good sentences and a sequence of events that is compelling and believable.

I try to tell a story that's good enough to win the right to integrate eternal themes into it. If it's poorly written or comes across as a sermon, then obviously you don't reach people, because they're aware that you're imposing something on a story that isn't innate to it.

If you want to write serious books, you must be ready to break the forms, break the forms.

A novelist writes a novel, and people read it. But reading is a solitary act. While it may elicit a varied and personal response, the communal nature of the audience is like having five hundred people read your novel and respond to it at the same time. I find that thrilling.

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

That's one of those things that will really hurt me personally, if I label a character or think about what it might do if it were to do well. I just try to do a good job with it.

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.