Jed Mercurio Quotes

Good storytelling appeals to me - good writing.

Movies are all about plot. Theater, even if it's story heavy, it's about ideas. Theater has to resonate in your heart in a way that movies don't.

I don't think I could write a straight drama.

My first duty to write a gripping yarn. Second is to convey credible characters who make you feel what they feel. Only third comes the idea.

To be able to write a play a man must be sensitive, imaginative, naive, gullible, passionate; he must be something of an imbecile, something of a poet, something of a liar, something of a damn fool.

As a writer, my main objective is to tell the story urgently - as if whispering it into one ear - and to know the characters intimately.

A good novel is a good novel, pointe finale. And I think what I'm writing is exactly that.

Readers want a story, not a pattern. It's the specifics of a story that make it really ping our various reader radars.

I'm drawn to a good story, really, as I hope most people are. For me, it's the story that's going to stay with you eventually, not necessarily the genre. I go to watch a film because of the story, not because it was a Western or a comedy.

The idea behind a dish - the delight and the surprise - makes a difference. Great literature surprises and delights, and provokes us. It isn't just 'Here's the facts - boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl.' It's how you tell it.

When the drama attains a characterization which makes the play a revelation of human conduct and a dialogue which characterizes yet pleases for itself, we reach dramatic literature.

A good novel is worth more then the best scientific study.

It is as true for the writer as for the reader that any novel worth its ink should be an experience first and foremost - not an essay, not a statement, not an orderly rollout of themes and propositions.

As a storyteller, you have the story that you tell, and you have the way you can tell it, and both are equally important.

I've always written about other artists, or I write my thoughts down, but I've never written a story.

Honestly, I don't focus on what my writing is called. I don't mean to sound artsy and pretentious, I just really can't think of things in that way. For me, the point is telling a story that keeps people up past bedtime, while hopefully exploring ideas that resonate.

I'm not as worried about the process of writing, simply because I think I've got that one down, you know? I think I know what brings specificity to these ideas, what brings specificity to the genre elements, or anything else, and it's personal emotions.

So much emotion goes into writing fiction.

I don't think in terms of optimism and pessimism when writing a story. I am telling a story.

I think storytelling is a thing of beauty, and also very difficult. It's a craft you have to continue to work at.

The shouting and opinion and jokes don't exist if there isn't first a story.

I don't care whether the story is real or fantastical. I tell the story that needs to be told.

If I ever wrote a script myself, it would be strongly emotional material.

I write books that will make 10 or 12 hours disappear, and hopefully they'll resonate with you for a few days, where you'll remember the characters and the story. That suits me fine; I am happy with that.

I don't write tracts, I write novels. I'm not a preacher, I'm a fiction writer.