Louise Jameson Quotes

I don't really approach stories to make them different from other stuff I've seen, I just try to get into the character, into his or her head. Try to make it as funny, as scary or as wild as I can so that I really like it.

I love writing both fiction and memoir. Both have unique challenges; bottom line, fiction is hard because you have to come up with the credible, twisty plot, and memoir is hard because you have to say something true and profound, albeit in a funny way.

A page a day means I need to focus on a gag a day, and that's great for laughs but bad for plot, and I'm primarily a plot guy.

In a comedy, after the day is done, you can figure out ways of how to make it even funnier for the next day. In dramas, it's very different - the mindset that you're in.

I don't plot my novels - I move along with my characters.

Although when I start a novel I know how it will begin and end, I like to let the people within the story take me on a journey between those points without having a fixed plan.

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.

But it was this tough little character part that I was playing, a very funny little guy that I invented over a weekend, because I realized I was not contributing to the humor of this thing. And I had to do something.

I'm not really good at character or plot development. I'm just interested in big comedic moments.

Show me a novel that's not comic, and I'll show you a novel that's not doing its job.

I rarely do any back story. I often get a thick bible of back story, but I can't use it. The back story is a tool of the writer. But I can only act what's in the scene.

Writing a whole series was a crash course in screenwriting, which is a very different muscle to standup comedy writing.

Robert Bolt's storytelling is the kind that I grew up with and aspired to.

The only thing I knew about novels from a technical point of view was that they should have conflict.

Whatever I do - whether it's directing, producing - I just come at things from characters, from stories, from jokes and scene rhythms. I'll always have that at the epicenter, I think.

There is a real affection for these human beings on these stage that O'Neill really had. Out of that affection comes a lot of humor, which is unexpected when you think of 'The Iceman Cometh.'

I do feel like anything benefits from character logic. That can be from the dumbest ad to the greatest Shakespearean drama to the silliest 'Saturday Night Live' sketch. There is a certain specificity in detail, which you can get when you're paying attention to stuff like that.

I came into this business to create characters that moved people and told stories.

A novel usually begins, in my experience, with a thought or image that won't leave me alone.

Once the world has been created, the fantasy author still has to bring the story's characters to life and unfold a gripping plot. That's why good fantasy is such a hard act to bring off.

For the longest time, I was in random cold matches for 30 minutes and tore the house down for no reason, and everyone complained, 'Why isn't he in some kind of a story?'

Gertrude's Secret' is highly entertaining. Some of the monologues are very funny, some very surprising and some painful.

The interesting thing I realized writing the 'X-Men' is I always had a sense of where I was going.

I think the most rewarding part for me is kind of not knowing where the story's going next, and then finding out and being blown away by it.

I'm always excited about stories that allow me to explore a character and create interesting stories and worlds that we haven't seen before.