Joe Shuster Quotes

Like every novelist, I fantasise about film. Novelists are not equipped to make a movie, in my opinion. They make their own movie when they write: they're casting, they're dressing the scene, they're working out where the energy of the scene is coming from, and they're also relying tremendously on the creative imagination of the reader.

If the script is telling the story well, that is your inspiration, and you do not need to go somewhere else.

I do take this insane pleasure in world-building. I get the world in my head, but I have to make sure everyone else gets it.

I picture my books as movies when I get stuck, and when I'm working on a new idea, the first thing I do is hit theaters to work out pacing and mood.

At first, I see pictures of a story in my mind. Then creating the story comes from asking questions of myself. I guess you might call it the 'what if - what then' approach to writing and illustration.

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.

Writing film scripts is the hardest thing in the world. A script has to go to five or six drafts, and you need the feedback of other people and to keep coming back with a fresh eye, honing it down.

I'm not the sort of writer who can walk into a party and take a look around, see who's sleeping with whom and go home and write a novel about society. It's not the way I work.

A script is a unique literary form, because it's not the end product; it's a blueprint. If you're not thinking of that end product, there's going to be a disconnect.

I write scripts to serve as skeletons awaiting the flesh and sinew of images.

I try to imagine the scenes as I'm writing them as if I were watching them play like a film.

I went to journalism school, so sometimes writing the script of 'Being Mary Jane' is me putting my journalism hat on.

First and foremost, it's got to be on the page. It starts with the writing.

For me, writing is a part of directing. It's the first stage of directing.

When you write scripts, it begins to feel like you're living in them.

A novel, at least for me, cannot be visualized at one time.

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.

For me, inspiration isn't a sort of spark which lights the fire of the story. It's more like a thread, one of many, which you can tease out of a story once it's written, if you feel so inclined.

I love rewriting because that is where and how you discover the story. It's like you have this skeleton, and you get to put flesh on it and hair and clothes and really wonderful jewelry.

My writing process often begins with a question. I write down ideas and let them stew for about a year. Then, when I sit down to write, I make a list of characters and try to see how they fit.

I think almost always that what gets me going with a story is the atmosphere, the visual imagery, and then I people it with characters, not the other way around.

You learn a lot, writing fiction.

As a fiction writer, my favorite tools are my imagination and the peculiar opportunities offered by different points of view.

I am not an analytical writer. Once I flesh out my characters and decide on the elements of my plot, the story unfolds in my head almost as though it was a movie reel.

So in the first draft, I'm inventing people and place with a broad schematic idea of what's going to happen. In the process, of course, I discover all sorts of bigger and more substantial things.