Anne Enright Quotes

Plot is a literary convention. Story is a force of nature.

The story is the only thing that's important. Everything else will take care of itself. It's like what bowlers say. You hear writers talk about character or theme or mood or mode or tense or person. But bowlers say, if you make the spares, the strikes will take care of themselves. If you can tell a story, everything else becomes possible. But without story, nothing is possible, because nobody wants to hear about your sensitive characters if there's nothing happening in the story. And the same is true with mood. Story is the only thing that's important.

The most important thing is the story. Not the script, but the story.

I don't make unconventional stories; I don't make non-linear stories. I like linear storytelling a lot.

I prefer to bring these to the service of story rather than to let them replace narrative.

My job as an author is to tell the story in the best way possible, to make it flow seamlessly and get the reader to keep turning the page.

I always try to tell a good story, one with a compelling plot that will keep the pages turning. That is my first and primary goal. Sometimes I can tackle an issue-homelessness, tobacco litigation, insurance fraud, the death penalty-and wrap a good story around it.

I spent ages figuring out things like viewpoint, how you tell the story, and so on.

You can't visit readers where you think they are. You have to invite them home to where you are and try to lure them into your universe. That's the art of storytelling.

I don't have a great eye for detail. I leave blanks in all of my stories. I leave out all detail, which leaves the reader to fill in something better.

I tell the story by feel most of the time, and I am not much given to labyrinthian digressions but seem to be naturally drawn to compression and pace, and the feelings come about on their own.

Robert Bolt's storytelling is the kind that I grew up with and aspired to.

I purposely adopted a style in my storytelling wherein I don't have to explain everything or why the story is moving in a particular way.

Good stories are constructed, not found.

The story is not in the plot but in the telling.

When well told, a story captured the subtle movement of change. If a novel was a map of a country, a story was the bright silver pin that marked the crossroads.

I don't know what makes a good feature story. I've always assumed that if it was a story that interested or amused me, that it would have the same impact on other people.

There is a reason there is no such thing as a folk writer. But to be a writer you have learn what it takes to captivate a reader in order to make them turn the page. And in order to learn that, you have to read.

The form is always integral to the expression of the theme or to the sheer telling of the story, and sometimes the right form is apparent to me from the outset and sometimes it isn't.

It is not enough for a story to flow. It has to kind of trickle and glint as it crosses over the stones of the bare facts.

A good story is like a bitter pill, with the sugar coating inside of it.

You just have to go with a good story and a script that you like and people that you like to work with.

According to Chekhov," Tamaru said, rising from his chair, "once a gun appears in a story, it has to be fired." "Meaning what?" "Meaning, don't bring unnecessary props into a story. If a pistol appears, it has to be fired at some point. Chekhov liked to write stories that did away with all useless ornamentation.

Short stories do not say this happened and this happened and this happened. They are a microcosm and a magnification rather than a linear progression.

When you're telling a story, you've got to give details.