Martin Cruz Smith Quotes

I love a good cliffhanger. I love when big events happen in shows. I love shows that aren't afraid to take risks and to really do what's best for the story line and realistic for the story line.

The villain drives the plot.

The secret at the heart of 'The Memory Keeper's Daughter' is something everybody, except for some of the characters, knows in Chapter 1. Some of the narrative tension comes from that distance between what the readers know and what the characters know.

In particular, I'm drawn to the stories that have big, high concepts and real characters at their heart. And I love where those two worlds meet, and 'Edge of Tomorrow' is the perfect canvas to explore that.

It's rare that I actually have a story in my head. I have events or 'what's the next move?' Like, Maggie, 'where's she going to go in this story, where's she going to end up?' Then the story has to fill in the in-between, and that comes as I'm starting it.

It's always good to have a story arch.

On a TV show, you don't know where the character is going.

What frustrates me about some high-concept shows is that they don't give you information until sweeps, but 'Jericho's' audience will get a large piece of the puzzle every week.

Before 'Wings' came out, I told a few people that at the end of book one, readers should think Laurel made the right choice. Then, at the end of 'Spells,' they should understand why Laurel made the choice she did.

I think predictability is built into any good novel in some way - you begin reading Anna Karenina and you know pretty much what's going to happen at the end. But that doesn't mean you know what's going to happen in the middle. For me, it's that sense of what happens in the middle that's important.

I always pity people who have to write my plot synopses.

The biggest lesson learned from 'X-Men: The Last Stand' or 'X3' was that if you are going to tell a Phoenix story, tell the Phoenix story. Don't make it the subplot of the movie. Make it the plot of the movie.

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.

For film and theater, you know how the story starts; you know how the story ends. With TV, you don't. It's literally like living real life in character.

Pfft, who wants to make a movie about a guy in a house?

Well, it's kind of like that classic sort of trajectory in this kind of movie where there's conflict and they're estranged and they kind of grow to love each other but they don't show it. Then at the end - it's kind of like that. But I think the characters are more interesting than that.

'The Turnaround' isn't even really a crime novel. But you need conflict to make a novel, any kind of novel, and I don't know any other way to do it than crime.

One of my favorite Tarantino films is 'Jackie Brown,' and 'Jackie Brown' does it so well, where I'm watching the back half of that movie, and I don't know which side Jackie Brown is playing. I think it's really ingenious for Tarantino to keep us in the dark on that.

What I've learnt from 'Friends' is don't let the characters get together because then it won't be as good afterwards.

My characters are not thinking about the act breaks. They're thinking about what they need to do to move forward. As long as I focus on that, the story starts to progress. As soon as I think, 'We're 20 pages in, something better blow up,' we're in trouble.

Stories matter to me. I look for a good script, story, and a strong part.

I try to mix the characters up and not be second guessed by the audience.

Procedurals are interesting to watch, but they're not as interesting to play because there isn't an opportunity to delve into any backstories. You're instead supporting the story week by week.

While we were in the middle of 'Avatar' we got a lot of volatile reaction from fans. They were very upset with the direction we were taking Zuko.

Let the story lead you. If the story needs to be dark, let it go dark. If it's a sweet, good-for-the-world story, that's what it is.