Stephen Graham Jones Quotes

It's always good to have a story arch.

I began to be impressed by what made a good book-how you needed to have a sensible story, a plot that developed, with a beginning, a middle, and an end that would tie everything together.

In a lot of cases, writers discover that the novel needs to begin later in the action than they'd first thought.

You set out to tell a good story. You don't do it because there is a deep message involved because the movie is almost always bad when you do that.

In judging other people's work, particularly short stories, I have noticed how novice writers tell the readers everything about their characters in the first paragraphs, disclose their motives, reveal their recent activities and their future intentions.

I believe in three-act structure. When I say that to novel people, or people in the world of books, they go, 'Well, that's a film thing.' However, even a good joke has three acts.

The main thing that I learned from editing is that most people, when they're making a film, they start too early into the story. They will try to set up the characters, they will try to establish things before the plot actually starts.

You spend so much time as a writer telling straight and linear stories.

I've been told by people I respect that flashbacks only work if they have their own narrative, but they can't be part of the present narrative.

I don't make unconventional stories; I don't make non-linear stories. I like linear storytelling a lot.

I don't like plots. I don't know what a plot means. I can't stand the idea of anything that starts in the beginning - you know, 'beginning, middle and end.'

Plot is what happens in your story. Every story needs structure, just as every body needs a skeleton. It is how you 'flesh out and clothe' your structure that makes each story unique.

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

The first act is the easiest to plot. The second act is always the hardest to plot. Generally a good, you know, sometimes the third act can be difficult because you can get into a rut in the third act - everybody runs to their Corvette, has a chase, and you catch the bad guy.

As a rule, anyone who can tell a good story can write one, so there really need be no mistake about his qualification; such a man will be careful not to be wearisome, and to keep his point, or his catastrophe, well in hand.

I understand why creative people like dark, but American audiences don't like dark. They like story. They do not respond to nervous breakdowns and unhappy episodes that lead nowhere. They like their characters to be a part of the action. They like strength, not weakness, a chance to work out any dilemma.

'Phantom' was for me an interesting technique of telling the story. You have one voice that it is in the present telling what is happening, and then there's one voice from the past that's also driving the story forward. And you know that the two story lines will meet eventually.

This is the story, this is your character, I have the sense of the landscape, I have the sense of the scene, I have all that stuff. But I'm also looking for something else to happen, an accident or something. You're focused on the story you intend to tell and then you have to have a peripheral net out to catch these accidents.

My job as an author is to tell the story in the best way possible, to make it flow seamlessly and get the reader to keep turning the page.

There is no other way of writing a novel than to begin at the beginning at to continue to the end.

I'm not very good at story. In fact, compared to character and language, I barely care about story at all.

I started as a playwright. Any sort of scriptwriting you do helps you hone your story. You have the same demands of creating a plot, developing relatable characters and keeping your audience invested in your story. My books are basically structured like three-act plays.

I always try to tell a good story, one with a compelling plot that will keep the pages turning. That is my first and primary goal. Sometimes I can tackle an issue-homelessness, tobacco litigation, insurance fraud, the death penalty-and wrap a good story around it.

It's nice to know when you're a part of a story, it's nice to know at least something about the beginning, middle, and end.

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