Melissa Mathison Quotes

If you're a writer, the insight of other writers - if there's some kind of Holy Grail message on how to deal with writer's block or how to deal with any problem that can come up - whether you're writing about yourself or a group of people, I find that very interesting.

I used to think it was hard to write, and I still find the process more or less unpleasant, but if I know what I'm doing it rattles along, then the rewrite whips it into shape rather quickly.

Struggling writers are often advised to pick a simple genre, but it doesn't work that way.

Writers are born, not made. We can hone the craft. We need to try to encourage someone and make a dialogue, suggesting ways to do something differently or how to improve.

When you're writing a story in bits and pieces, month in and month out, there really isn't time or space for reflection, no room to learn what those scripts had to teach you.

I am dismayed to realize that much of the advice I used to parcel out to aspiring writers has passed its sell-by date.

Read everything you can on writing. Join online forums and critique groups, go to conferences, get feedback, and learn, learn, learn!

Every story I write is different. Some are hard. Some aren't. 'Chronicle' was tremendously easy. I have a hard time comparing my process on different things, but I will say this: The more you write, the better you get at it. That's one of the few things that's markedly true.

Writing tips are like mini skirts. Sometimes they fit perfectly, sometimes they make you cry, and sometimes you can reuse the material and sew yourself a pillow or something.

Read good books. Read bad books - and figure out why you don't like them. Then don't do it when you write. If you are a science fiction or fantasy writer, going to conventions and attending panels is very useful.

Sometimes you just dread reading scripts; it's like the chef who doesn't want to cook at home.

I taught writing classes at the University of Pennsylvania for a number of years and I realized that all you can do is encourage people and give them assignments and hope they will write them.

To be a dramatic writer takes hard work, talent, and discipline. And that's why I just make up crap.

The one thing emphasized in any creative writing course is 'write what you know,' and that automatically drives a wooden stake through the heart of imagination. If they really understood the mysterious process of creating fiction, they would say, 'You can write about anything you can imagine.'

I knew I was a writer; I wanted to be a writer, but I didn't know what to write.

If I write scripts that nobody likes, I don't think we'll be doing 'True Detective.'

I liked to write from the time I was about 12 or 13. I loved to read. And since I only spoke to my brother, I would write down my thoughts. And I think I wrote some of the worst poetry west of the Rockies. But by the time I was in my 20s, I found myself writing little essays and more poetry - writing at writing.

All experience helps when you write.

I do want to work on writing, because writing's a skill. Writing is something that you can train yourself to know better. To know yourself better. And it's intimidating as hell.

Many first-time novelists end up rewriting their first two or three chapters, trying to get them 'just right.' But the point of the first draft is not to get it right; it's to get it written - so that you'll have something to work with.

I consider criticism merely a preliminary excitement, a statement of things a writer has to clear up in his own head sometime or other, probably antecedent to writing; of no value unless it come to fruit in the created work later.

I've written plenty of scripts that sucked.

There's no such thing as easy, but it's easier when a script is good.

What one's goal should be is just to become a better writer and to tell different kinds of stories.

Neophyte writers tend to believe that there is something magical about ideas and that if they can just get a hold of a good one, then their futures are ensured.