Andrew Sean Greer Quotes

I'd be lying if I said that any part of writing is easy for me, but I have always found that setting comes more naturally to me than, say, writing action scenes.

How can you turn down Marks and Gran? Their scripts are so rich in texture.

The elegance of a really good screenplay, I admire it. I can't do it.

I often attribute my screenwriting to journalism because they drill in the who, what, when, where and why - but we really need to land on that why. That's what I've been exploring in my writing for many years and trying to get better at.

A good script makes our job a lot easier.

It's fun to improvise, but I still think it's better to have a great script, you know, like a Charlie Kaufman script.

You're torn between wanting to fill in all the spaces and knowing that's really going to screw up the screenplay. And yet, how are you going to communicate it to people who really don't understand the process?

I consider my job as a screenwriter to pack a script with possibilities and ideas - to create a feast for the filmmaker to pick from.

I'm just a sucker for a good script.

I've only ever taken a playwriting class, but I like creative writing and writing screenplays.

Writing sketches, you're also learning about a journey and characters, and you translate that to bigger things.

I think when you're writing films that just come fresh out of your own imagination - I think probably anyone who's done that, there are certain themes or styles.

It was really fun to start writing movies because you could actually take characters whose voice you enjoy writing in and have actual things happen to them for more than five minutes. It was really fun to thread it together.

I try to write cinematically. Let me define what I mean by that. First of all, I try to write in a visual way so that the reader can watch a movie in their head. And it keeps moving. I try to structure the stories like a screenplay may be structured.

It always comes down to script and characters.

A good script is like a work of art in itself. I've read hundreds of scripts, and good ones are very rare. If the writer has something to say, and a voice, and a plot that matches character, and an emotional trajectory that works, then I'd be an idiot to fool around with it. It's just that few scripts ever are like that.

I'm kind of down for anything, as long as it's an amazing script that speaks to me, so I'm just constantly reading and constantly looking.

I always struggle with making the technical aspects of the plot fit with the story that's unfolding in my imagination.

I definitely have the screenwriting itch.

I have no problems or issues with screenwriting in general.

You use simple brushstrokes in a screenplay for things over which you would take much greater pains in a novel.

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.

Because TV is mostly close up, it has to be fast. And because it has to be fast, you don't have time to explain completely, by a sequence shot, what's happening between people. So instead of experiencing what's happening, say, when a couple is dancing, dialogue is used to explain.

I am not an analytical writer. Once I flesh out my characters and decide on the elements of my plot, the story unfolds in my head almost as though it was a movie reel.

When I first read the script a few years ago I thought it was one of the best written scripts I had ever read.