Frank Deford Quotes

One of the things that I've been trying to do with my characters, one of the things that does lead to me turning things down, is I don't really want to repeat myself.

I would rather read a poorly structured story that has fresh ideas than a tightly structured one with cliches.

When we first started to write our first movie, 'You Are Going To Prison,' we wanted it to be crazy and unique, brand new, our voice, not like anything that'd ever been before. It took us about a year to write our first script.

I never take ideas from the headlines. I feel that if a story is good enough, a real story that is, then it's already been covered by the media, and if it's not good enough, why would I want to bother with it?

When you write down your life, every page should contain something no one has ever heard about.

If you write an original, it's like you went in and dug a well, and you hit oil. But an adaptation, it's like the oil well's on fire, and they bring you in to put the fire out and get it working again - or something like that.

Re-writing is different from writing. Original writing is very difficult.

My mum used to tell me to never boil my cabbages twice, and I think it's artistically valid. While I do find myself on similar themes in my books, I try not to repeat myself, and that's something which is all too easy to do in series books.

The real challenge in doing a TV show is in what I would call the maintenance energy. You take that creative energy and you use it every week, of course. But you then need to maintain the quality of the stories, and it's harder to do.

I love to write. I used to be a math teacher. And I like the idea that other people could write about the same subjects, but no one would write it just the way I do. It's very individual: a child could write the same story as somebody else, but it wouldn't come out the same.

Good scripts and interesting stories are hard enough to find.

It's hard to write a good play because it's hard to structure a plot. If you can think of it off the top of your head, so can the audience.

I hate being bored when I read a story. Even a well-trod theme can be made fresh by a different perspective or fresh writing.

If I do do a sequel, I'm going to have to know for sure that the script is better than the original. So I'm going to be very careful about that because I'm not eager to repeat myself.

At MTV, it's very nice sometimes to be able to be very specific. Specificity really makes a news story interesting because you can color it in that personality.

So much of television is incredibly predictable. You watch the first five minutes and you know where it's going to go. If you can just create an element of surprise in both the storytelling and tone of a show, you're going to be way ahead of the pack.

Each novel is harder than its predecessor because I must work harder at not repeating myself. However, I enjoy the challenge. This is the greatest job in the world.

I like writing my own material - I'm pretty good at it.

When you're making TV, the last thing you want to do is watch TV. It's too much.

Every time I write a new book, I want to push myself to try something different.

I don't think there's any topic a writer should feel afraid of tackling just because it has already been discussed. If you feel you have a fresh perspective and an understanding of a certain emotional truth, it's always worth writing.

It's fun to twist fairy tales, but at the same time, I know I need to write stories that are different enough from each other that fans don't feel like they're just reading the same story over and over again.

One thing I can say right off the bat is that creating great editorial is a huge challenge, and you can't help but go through the process and not appreciate how valuable this skill is, and how much I admire the people who do this every day.

What I'm after is something different than supplying people with the idea that I'm writing an important play.

When a newspaper columnist wants to write about a novel, the rule is that you're supposed to have a 'hook,' an excuse, a timely reason to bring up the book in question.