Carlton Cuse Quotes

There's an outline for each of the books that I adhere to pretty closely, but I'm not averse to taking it in a new direction, as long as I can get it back to where I need it to go.

I like talking about comic book process, and one of the things is that I have plans going ahead for years, and the plans constantly get thrown away and shifted. There's a difference between planning and what actually happens in life, and comics have a life of their own.

But at the same time, I have trouble keeping things out of books, which is why I don't write short stories because they turn into novels.

My fictitious characters will take the bit between their teeth and gallop off and do something that I hadn't counted on. However, I always insist on dragging them back to the straight and narrow.

As a writer, it's a great narrative tool to have that character who is slightly detached but at the same time observant of his reality, because I think that's pretty much what being a writer is - being there, watching and internalizing.

I love that there's a beginning, middle and end to a film and you can craft what the whole journey is going to look like.

I tend to write my beginnings and endings first - as a cartoonist and storyteller, I couldn't sit down every day if I didn't know where the story was headed.

You can't write anything you want. Once you write that first chapter, then everything else is determined. You can write anything you want, but only one thing works.

If I didn't see its place in the Saga when I planned it, I probably wouldn't write it at all.

I've often wished when I started a book I knew what was going to happen. I talked to writers who write 80-page outlines, and I'm just in awe of that.

I've always known when I start a story what the last line is. It's always been the case, since the first story I ever wrote. I don't know how it's going to get there, but I seem to need the destination. I need to know where I end up. It never changes, ever.

I'm not like Jonathan Hickman, who's able to sort of plot out three years of a book ahead of time. I'm much more of a guy who plots out an arc or two at a time.

When a book is going well, it tells you where to go.

I can't really write anything without knowing the ending. I don't know how people do that. Even with my superhero stuff, I have to know at least where I want to take the characters and what the ending of my story with them will be. I just can't structure stories or character arcs and stuff without knowing the endpoint.

You want to suggest something new, but at the same time, resolve the drama of the action in the novel.

As a viewer of TV shows, I always like shows more when I just feel like the people in charge have a plan. You can just tell sometimes, 'Oh, there's a plan there. They have an idea for how this is going to unfold.'

We have that illusion that we are 'deciding' what to make a character do, in order to 'convey our message' or something like that. But, at least in my experience, you are often more like a river-rafting guide who's been paid a bonus to purposely steer your clients into the roughest possible water.

After I wrote my memoir, 'A Long Way Gone,' I was a bit exhausted. I didn't want to write another memoir; I felt that it might not be sane for one to speak about himself for many, many, many years in a row. At the same time, I felt the story of 'Radiance of Tomorrow' pulling at me because of the first book.

A novelist writes a novel, and people read it. But reading is a solitary act. While it may elicit a varied and personal response, the communal nature of the audience is like having five hundred people read your novel and respond to it at the same time. I find that thrilling.

The process of writing a story isn't about fair. It's about getting to the heart of your story, getting to the truth of it. It transcends ideals of fair and unfair, right and wrong.

It would not be amiss for the novice to write the last paragraph of his story first, once a synopsis of the plot has been carefully prepared - as it always should be.

Fans are always talking about endgame as though endgame has been chosen from minute 1. I don't know that you could talk to a single series creator that would say confidently 'Where I started is where I finished, and there was no way in hell I was going to stray from that path.' 'Dawson's' being the perfect example.

I usually have a general idea of where the story is going, but I try to avoid planning in too much detail. The best endings are those that emerge only after I've thought long and hard about the various ways the story might end. Then I choose the ending that seems surprising yet somehow inevitable.

I enjoy writing scripts. I can find out what happens. With an outline, I feel like I'm doing an architectural diagram of something.

Writers know - especially new writers - [that] a lot of it [creative process] is the prewriting stage, the talking, brainstorming, the narrative arc and the character sketches.