Damon Lindelof Quotes

I hate it when it is all about the twist and when the ending comes out of nowhere. I think you should be surprised and shocked, but you should also think, 'Damn, I should have seen it,' because there are clues all the way through.

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

I think predictability is built into any good novel in some way - you begin reading Anna Karenina and you know pretty much what's going to happen at the end. But that doesn't mean you know what's going to happen in the middle. For me, it's that sense of what happens in the middle that's important.

It's so great in the theater when everyone catches up on the truth.

It was unpredictable, good storytelling that brought you back each week.

In a crime novel, if you are going to have a big revelation in chapter 30, you have to plant the information in chapters three and 11.

A story to me means a plot where there is some surprise. Because that is how life is - full of surprises.

I love to watch good actors who surprise and amuse me.

Listen to great storytellers; slowly, you will learn about voice, timing, tension, structure, climax - all the things you need to tell stories that will capture the imagination of your audience.

I like the idea of shows where I don't know where I'll be at the end of the season.

Jeff Eastin is good in that he'll tell me a plot twist that's coming up if he thinks it would be something Peter would know ahead of time, and if it's something that would be a surprise to Peter, I'll tell Jeff, 'Oh, don't tell me. I don't want to know.' And then it's exciting to read it and exciting to play it.

It's funny: I like being surprised as a reader, so it's difficult for me to spoil my own stuff.

A good story will keep you wondering about what's happening, what's going on, where does this go? Now it's going to go that way, now it's going to go that way. It has to do that. If it's predictable, it's just boring.

The success of the storytellers - we're only as good as what we can withhold from the audience. Aspects of surprise and letting things play out for the audience - it's so much a part of their enjoyment. It's one of the great things about working in the movies and being a great storyteller.

That's what a good crime novelist - any good novelist - should do with you: play with your perceptions while showing you everything in plain sight.

People talk about the plots and what happened, and they see your tricks a mile away.

I'm so tired of stories starting, 'Maud Jones was walking her dog down Broadway.' You've got to go over to the back page somewhere to finally find out the damn dog was run over by a truck. Get the thing told, for heaven's sake. Everybody doesn't have to be an O. Henry.

It's amazing how far you can get into a plot before you figure out what you're doing.

I think too often in films, people think endings are a summation of plot, and I don't like that. Because once you know where you're going as an audience member, then it's like a video game. You're just waiting for them to get through the levels and beat the bad guy. And I just think that's boring.

What's so cool about 'Light of the Seven' - and what I love about 'Game of Thrones' - is you never know what's going to happen.

When you're watching a Hitchcock movie, you, for most of the movie, are playing the guessing game. What's the endgame? What's the plot? How are these people involved? It's the best way to tell the story, and as a viewer, that's what you want to experience.

I believe thrillers work if the story is good. It is not easy to make a thriller because the audience is making their own story in their minds as they watch the film. You have to break that expectation and still make them like the film.

An important part of any good mystery story like 'Original Sin' is that it's not just a game of 'Clue' with surprise after surprise after surprise, but the goal is to tell a story in the midst of that. Even once you know the solution to the mysteries, it's far from the whole story.

Very often, I'm part of the deception because the way I play things is that I want you to be able to look back and go, "Oh, my god, I didn't see that at the time, but now it all makes sense," and you want to watch it a second time with the benefit of hindsight.

Make the audience wonder what's going on by putting them in the same position as the protagonist.