Ernest Gaines Quotes

Whenever you can manoeuvre your characters into a situation where they both have a good argument to make, you're on the right track.

I suppose with any good writing and interesting characters, you can have that awfully overused word: a journey.

I love a really good storyline.

In a story, you have to have a theme and an angle, you have to have a beginning, middle and an end. You have to have a defining moment and kick it to death. You gotta be able to recognize that, by the way. It probably takes experience.

A good short-story writer has an instinct for sketching in just enough background to ground the specific story.

In fiction, it's a big challenge to keep the reader in one place for so long.

I write largely plot-driven stories.

There are many oral historians in America, but my books are made using the rules of novel writing. I have a beginning, a plot, characters.

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.

I have always argued, in a good novel, interesting things happen to interesting people.

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.

The suspense of a novel is not only in the reader, but in the novelist, who is intensely curious about what will happen to the hero.

Basically, fiction is people. You can't write fiction about ideas.

Unless the story line carries the scenes, the scenes don't really mean anything.

Good stories are driven by conflict, tension, and high stakes.

Any show I'm working on, I want the stories to always be about something, and to have the potential to be emotional. That's the kind of story that I like.

When you're a writer, you're always looking for conflict. It's conflict that drives great stories.

Events at home, at work, in the street - these are the bases for a story.

For success, the author must make the reader care about the destiny of the principals, and sustain this anxiety, or suspense, for about 100,000 words.

As a writer, my only responsibility is to tell a compelling 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 think it's a short story writer's duty, as well as writing well about emotions and characters, to write story.

No, you don't have to start your play with a premise. You can start with a character or an incident, or even a simple thought. This thought or incident grows, and the story slowly unfolds itself. You have time to find your premise in the mass of your material later. The important thing is to find it.

Good storytelling appeals to me - good writing.

When you have really good writing, you're compelled by the actors who are in it, and you may think it's the actors or the design or the filmmaking of it, but then you're like, 'Well, the base is a really rich story that these guys have created.'