Robert Eggers Quotes

When you think of a great twist or a red herring or a way of misdirecting the reader, it is good, but you know that they are just tricks at the end of the day, and the way to keep interest is to write characters that people care about.

What I do is put my characters into situations that are so precarious there is no way to get out. And then I figure how to get them out.

Why, for example, do the great writers use anticipation instead of surprise? Because surprise is merely an instrument of the unusual, whereas anticipation of a consequence enlarges our understanding of what is happening.

I believe the most important thing you can do in any kind of novel is to make your reader want to go on with it and want to know what happens next.

We figured the audience would want good stories, great art, wonderful characters, people you could fall in love with that we would immediately put through hell.

What resonates with me whenever I watch a great movie or TV show is the balance of inevitability and unpredictability. And it's a very delicate balance.

You get so caught up in what you're writing - action sequences tend to do that more than anything else because you're living it, and feeling for your characters.

Giving consumers the choice of having it all in one big bite means different viewers are in many different places in the book, making it hard to discuss without spoiling the plot. The intervals between first-run programming provide a space for communion and that tantalizing sense of anticipation.

In a crime novel, if you are going to have a big revelation in chapter 30, you have to plant the information in chapters three and 11.

If I watch something, I want to be wondering what is going to happen next; I want to be engaged in a way that makes me ask questions and think about how I can relate myself to the characters and the issues that are there. But if it's just fluff, and everything is spelt out, I find it difficult to concentrate.

I think the tricky balance, the most important thing more than the horror is to have a compelling story, compelling drama, a show about great characters that you care about and you want to come back every week to see what they're up to.

For me, the writing process is the same as the reading process. I want to know what happens next.

As a writer, I try to appeal to the 'elusive boy audience' the same way I try to appeal to everyone: I do the very best I can to create interesting characters, addictive plots, tons of conflict, believable settings, unexpected plot twists, intriguing beginnings, and satisfying endings.

I personally love a cliffhanger - I think it just extends the pleasure of viewing.

Big stories need human stakes.

To be completely honest, I just like whatever tells a good story. Put me in whatever setting, scenario, genre. If you're telling a good story, it's great and it's fun to get caught up in.

As a reader, I happen to like turning pages and wanting to know what happens next.

When I see an image in my head that compels me, where there's this mystery about what's going to happen next or could happen next, I'll be intrigued. There are so many scripts that you read, and you know exactly what's going to happen, and there aren't too many where you can't tell within the first 20 pages where it's going.

I like the idea of shows where I don't know where I'll be at the end of the season.

Suspense is very important. Even though this is humor and they're short stories, that theory of building suspense is still there.

As writers, we must keep throwing problems at our characters. Conflict is the heart of good storytelling. Hiking in nature along a twisting trail can remind us what a good story feels like. It's the opposite of a treadmill - or an interstate highway.

Even if your novel occurs in an unfamiliar setting in which all the customs and surroundings will seem strange to your reader, it's still better to start with action. The reason for this is simple. If the reader wanted an explanation of milieu, he would read nonfiction. He doesn't want information. He wants a story.

From beginning to end it's about keeping the energy and the intensity of the story and not doing too much and not doing too little, but just enough so people stay interested and stay involved in the characters.

You run the risk, whenever you build your story around a central mystery, of either letting it go too long, or revealing it too soon and then taking the wind out of the sails of the narrative.

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.