Seth Grahame-Smith Quotes

My only conclusion about structure is that nothing works if you don't have interesting characters and a good story to tell.

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.

I think I would struggle with any job if it was purely about effects. Even as a viewer, those aren't the kind of things that interest me. I think ultimately you have to be connected to characters and their relationships. Otherwise, it's not drama to me.

In order to deliver the emotional truth in the story, you have to include some of the literal truth.

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

Settings are obviously important - and as a writer, you have to respect what was real at the time of the story you're writing. But the real key to success lies in finding the right characters to carry that story.

It's people politics, people dynamics that make a show really good, whether it's 'Desperate Housewives' or 'Lost' or 'The Sopranos.' It's the people we've grown to love or otherwise.

It interests me to imagine characters shifting from one situation and one location to another for whatever the circumstances may be.

In a lot of ways, TV writing taught me how to be a good storyteller. I learned about dialogue, scenes, moving the plot forward.

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 try to trace the connection between the characters and that way a story or plot emerges.

It's really about, oh come on, this guy wouldn't say that or he wouldn't do that, you know, it's about the characters, about the story, about the situation.

For me, emotion comes first. If I have to change a scene, invent a scene, change dialogue, or put Graff by the lake in order to feel that dynamic, and the end results feels like 'Ender's Game,' then hopefully it works.

As an actor, I think a mistake that any storyteller can make is to play the ending.

Some novels present a story form many points of view. Most movies tell only one person's side of the story. Sometime it's easy to use the strongest point of view, or find the character with the most dramatic experience. It depends on which themes the scriptwriter wants to explore.

There is one plot point in one of the 'D'Arnath' books that I don't think I handled as well as I could have. Am I going to tell you which one? No way!

I'm still really fascinated with characters and people and telling their stories.

My stories are character driven.

I do novels a bit backward. I look for a situation, a milieu first, and then I wait to see who walks into it.

My main problem with fiction is that once my characters get moving, you just have to follow them along and get out of the way of the story, but sometimes they pull me in too many directions, and I need to focus.

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.

Creating authentic emotional experiences, whether it's 'Star Wars' or 'Spotlight,' are driven by characters and stories that are engaging.

Lots of times when I'm offered things, I can't see how a story gets filmed. Either it's too internal or it doesn't have a strong spine.

I'm interested in characters and relationships.