Lisa Joy Quotes

I think kids want the same thing from a book that adults want - a fast-paced story, characters worth caring about, humor, surprises, and mystery. A good book always keeps you asking questions, and makes you keep turning pages so you can find out the answers.

When I see an image in my head that compels me, where there's this mystery about what's going to happen next or could happen next, I'll be intrigued. There are so many scripts that you read, and you know exactly what's going to happen, and there aren't too many where you can't tell within the first 20 pages where it's going.

I like stories that leave you wanting more, leave you wondering, but don't tell you everything.

I know what it's like to be genuinely intrigued and compelled by a story and to have a sense that there's an adventure to be had and a film to be conjured.

Even if I never sold another book, I'd keep writing, because the stories are here, in my head. Stories that just need to be told. I love watching a plot unfold, and feeling the surprise when the unexpected happens.

I'm writing for my ideal reader, for somebody who's willing to take the time, who's willing to get lost in a new world, who's willing to do their part. But then I have to do my part and give them a sound and a voice that they believe in enough to keep going.

When there's an authentic mystery, as opposed to just a question being asked, that's what makes you lean forward.

I have no plans for a future Jemima Shore mystery, but would write one tomorrow if a good idea came to me.

I'm one of those crazy people, if I'm watching the trailer for a movie and I'm really excited by it, I'll turn it off because I don't want to know anything. I want to be surprised because I love that more than knowing anything.

That's the mark of a great storyteller, never to give away secrets in advance.

Hack fiction exploits curiosity without really satisfying it or making connections between it and anything else in the world.

A novel should be a book of questions, not a book of answers.

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.

That's the thing with 'Lost': you can put a spin on so many things.

Suspense is my thing. I think I am able to make people want to keep turning pages. They want to know what happens. So I can do that.

I love the novel because it's like a love affair. You can just fall into it and keep going, and you never know where it's going to take you.

For me, the writing process is the same as the reading process. I want to know what happens next.

When I'm an audience member I do not want to go and see something that I already know, I want to see something that I don't know. I want to be surprised and stimulated to think about something. I want the magic. I want to be in a situation of uncertainty; that's what excites me.

You have to understand that while I pre-plot the meta story of a given book, I often have no idea of what will happen on the next page, let alone the next chapter. That's what makes it fun for me; I write the books the same way many people read them.

Don't be so familiar and so much into the details. Keep people dreaming. Close the window, and make them wonder.

I think with any movie, the more you know, it loses some of its power.

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

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.

One feels the excitement of hearing an untold story.

We are all like Scheherazade's husband, in that we want to know what happens next.