Emily Giffin Quotes

I make no distinction between writing and storytelling; I've always wanted to tell stories.

The whole point of making a film is to tell a story. That seems to be forgotten. Many films today just rely on special effects and they have an explosion every five minutes. Who needs it? It's rather repetitious.

I don't ever want to impose something on the story. I want the story to tell me.

People who actually tell stories, meaning people who write novels and make feature films, don't see themselves as storytellers.

Sometimes journalists ask me, "What's the message?" There is no message. I think that fiction should not be trying to give messages. Just tell a story.

A performance can have amazing visuals and special effects, but it has to tell a good story, even if that story isn't original.

I consider a story merely as a frame on which to stretch my materials.

I've never invested myself properly in trying to write stories. When I write lyrics, mostly I write each sentence separately on an index card and then I lay them out and I just mix them up.

To me, there are lots of different stories to tell and you usually find the best way to tell the one you are telling once you are in it.

I want to tell stories, I don't really try to get boxed in by a specific genre.

Stop trying to write sentences and start trying to write stories.

I love stories - devising them, writing them, reading them, watching them, being a part of them.

I suspect there are two kinds of novelists. Those who have a point of view and have something to say and then write a novel in order to say that thing, and those of us who write the book in order to find out what we think about that thing.

I love storytelling so for me to get behind a story and get in there early in its infancy and kind of develop it in the early stages was something I really wanted to be a part of.

In writing fiction, I can be free. I can use my life. The raw material is my experiences.

You start as an audience member and create a world you're interested in, and then you move into the telling of those stories, bringing what has interested you as an audience member.

It's all about letting the story take over.

Successful fiction does not need to be validated by 'real life'; I cringe whenever a writer is asked how much of a novel is 'real'.

A novel wouldn't be a book if there weren't some flights of fancy on the part of the author, stopping time to examine things, or to tell a joke.

I write the kind of stuff I'd like to watch.

So many stories, and to choose which ones to tell and how to tell them. The words, they will tap me on the shoulder and they will speak to me: 'Tell me! Tell me!' The stories choose me.

I've tried very hard and I've never found any resemblance between the people I know and the people in my novels.

I've always loved reading and always loved the movies. Storytelling is one of the oldest of human endeavors, and they give us our understanding of the world and our place in it. When I discovered that there were people who professionally were involved in the creation of stories, it was game over - I knew what I wanted to do it.

Every so often, you want to map out your plot mythology but never so specifically that you can't let a story surprise you. You want to allow the type of action of the writer's room so that you have the ability to take a left turn.

When you do fiction, it is your imagination you have put out there.