Stephen Sondheim Quotes

I work in a dramatic context, meaning we write with a lot of character specifics, a lot of story specifics. There's a lot of architecture in our songs.

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.

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

I'm just a sucker for a good script.

I find the constraints of drama actually freeing: It brings everything down to character and action.

It's writing songs within the structure of telling a story, so it becomes a platform for diverse songwriting, for a writing process that's broader than just figuring out a song. You're also dealing with always pushing the story forward, with casting the voices, with the orchestration, with the arrangements.

I think what I look for in a script, it's the relatability quotient that matters the most.

It always comes down to script and characters.

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 am on the lookout for smart scripts and stories where my role has weightage.

It's much easier to write a song for a musical than just writing a song because, writing for a musical, you know what the story is about, so you know what the songs have got to say.

I think screenplay is hard. I've tried that, and it felt really difficult; like, all the stuff I think I'm good at, like description and internal experience and memory, you can't do that - or, at least, I couldn't figure out a way.

I don't find writing for the theater that different from writing a rock song.

I have no problems or issues with screenwriting in general.

In the 'Buffy' room, it was never about a plot twist, ever. It was always about, 'Tell the story, tell the characters, complicate their lives, make things get worse,' but we never worked backwards from the plot, and it was always a great lesson.

Sondheim is my god; I love the man. I learned a great deal about writing from his work, his lyrics, and his structure.

A good script makes our job a lot easier.

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.

If I ever wrote a script myself, it would be strongly emotional material.

A lot of my early career, I wrote story songs that had narratives, that had plots.

I just want to tell a good story, so I always ask myself, 'Are these people real to me?'

I like films to be complete in their written form.

The villain drives the plot.

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

As a novelist, I'm endlessly fascinated by human behavior and interactions.