Alan Ball Quotes

I prefer to surprise myself as I'm writing. I'm not interested in it if I already know where it's going. So I have only the most general sense of what I'm doing when I start a story. I sometimes have a destination in mind, but how the story is going to go from Point A to Point Z is something I make up as I go along.

Writing a story is kind of like surfing, as opposed to the novel, where you use a GPS to get somewhere. With surfing, you kind of jump.

Writing an essay is like a school assignment: I have my topic, I organize my thoughts, and I write it. I have complete control over what I'm doing. Writing a novel is like setting out on a journey without knowing who or what I'll encounter, how long it's going to take, or where I'm going to end up.

I start with a character and a situation, but I don't know what's going to happen until I write it. Sometimes things happen that surprise me.

I never plan my novels because if I know what is going to happen, it bores me rigid. I let the story tell itself.

I never know what I'm going to write next, and when I think I do I usually turn out to be mistaken.

Producing a series is like being Lewis and Clark: You know where you're going, you just don't know how you're going to get there. When people say, 'You should create a bible for your show,' I say, 'You don't want a bible. It'll prevent you from making discoveries along the way.' And that's what happened on 'The X-Files.'

Sometimes they keep us in the dark, but it's TV, so sometimes they keep us in the dark because even they don't know yet. You know what I mean? So, it sort of develops as it goes along and according to various needs that arise.

I have likened writing a novel to going on a journey, with some notion of the destination I will arrive at, but not the whole picture - which emerges gradually as a series of revelations, as the journey goes along.

I never know, when I start writing a story, what's going to happen, or how it will all get sorted out.

I like to sit down every day and not know where the book is going. I have no idea where the book is going to go or how it's going to end as I'm writing it.

I always say that, for me, writing a book is like a wacky Greyhound bus trip - I know where I'm starting and where I'll end up, but I have no idea what will happen along the way.

Basically, I just write whatever story grabs me rather than considering the genre.

I do not outline. There are writers I know and count as my friends who certainly do it the other way, but for me, part of the adventure is not knowing how it's going to turn out.

I never make notes; just a few small details when I'm writing, but nothing much. The plot is never written down. I will tell the story to myself, but I won't plan it. I'll speak the narrative in my head for a while.

I always think I know the way a novel will go. I write maps on oversized art pads like the kind I carried around in college when I was earnest about drawing. I need to have some idea of the shape of the novel, where its headed, so that I can proceed with confidence. But the truth is my characters start doing and saying things I don't expect.

I never know as a writer when I set out into a novel where it's going to take me.

I never know what's going to happen in a novel. I don't have a plan or an outline.

What I learned in 'Sons' is that I would come in with a blueprint of a season and how it would go, and I realized that the looser my grip was, the better it became because the story found itself. Things happened as I wanted them to in terms of the bigger mile markers, but the fun part was I never knew how we would get there.

I write through improvisation. I never card out a movie. You know how people will outline or card? I don't do that. I tend to start with an idea and go.

I always have a rough outline, but I'm shocked at how little I actually follow it. Those characters keep doing things that I never expected. I think if I crept up to my keyboard and peeked, they'd be talking about things behind my back. Okay, that's a little paranoid and delusional... but just a little.

Writers get embarrassed sometimes in talking about how much fun writing can be, but drafting is often really enjoyable. Often, you're tumbling in the dark, and you don't know where the story is going to lead.

There's no game plan when it comes to thinking up new characters; inspiration can come from anything - from a wig I've seen to an expression I've heard someone use.

Really good books need a chaos element: something weird or inexplicable.

I've always been somebody who, when I started a picture, never knew what the next picture would be.