Laura Amy Schlitz Quotes

You don't idea your way into a plot but plot your way into an idea.

To combine telling an interesting story with brilliantly written characters is the most difficult thing to do.

Sometimes, I have themes that interest me or that touch on larger issues but, really, I'm just trying to figure out the plot, or how the characters work. I'm trying to make the best story I possibly can.

So in the first draft, I'm inventing people and place with a broad schematic idea of what's going to happen. In the process, of course, I discover all sorts of bigger and more substantial things.

You can throw a novel into focus with one overheard line.

I'm big on story structure. I studied with John Truby, who mapped out story by means of moral wants and needs, and that's what I do. Hey, so does John Irving.

Settings are obviously important - and as a writer, you have to respect what was real at the time of the story you're writing. But the real key to success lies in finding the right characters to carry that story.

In a lot of ways, TV writing taught me how to be a good storyteller. I learned about dialogue, scenes, moving the plot forward.

I spent ages figuring out things like viewpoint, how you tell the story, and so on.

What I have in advance are people I want to write about and a problem or problems that I see those people encountering and that I want to explore - it all proceeds sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, and scene by scene.

When you're writing a novel - at least the way I write is I work from what I would call 'emotional atmosphere,' ambiance to ambiance.

When you are working on a script, the story itself is not difficult. You say this would happen and then this, resulting perhaps in this. And the dialogue you make as true as you can.

I can't really write anything without knowing the ending. I don't know how people do that. Even with my superhero stuff, I have to know at least where I want to take the characters and what the ending of my story with them will be. I just can't structure stories or character arcs and stuff without knowing the endpoint.

I tend to write one character at a time. But I don't write the entirety of one character at a time.

There is no better place to plot the death of a character than when you're miserable and working out.

It's just so much fun to make up characters, situations, and everything else about a story. I have so much freedom and flexibility to do whatever I want.

The unfolding of a story is both as exciting and as difficult for each and every novel I've written, regardless of time and place.

Everything you write makes you better. But if you really need a tip, here's one: a good story begins in opposition to its ending. That means you work out how it finishes first, and then begin the story as far away from that point - in terms of character development - as you can.

Writing a story or a novel is one way of discovering sequence in experience, of stumbling upon cause and effect in the happenings of a writer's own life.

Lots of times when I'm offered things, I can't see how a story gets filmed. Either it's too internal or it doesn't have a strong spine.

My only conclusion about structure is that nothing works if you don't have interesting characters and a good story to tell.

I tend to lean toward romance, characters, and relationships when I write, so I have to add to the setting elements and world-building when I revise.

For someone who wants to write a story, they should go on thinking about the story. When it comes up to a level, where it has reached your neck that's when you should go about writing it.

I love all the characters I write.

I like to let the story flesh itself out, and usually, the characters make their own decisions as things get under way. Dialogue especially seems to write itself once I'm familiar with the characters and their backgrounds.