Nathan Myhrvold Quotes

Don't ever let the other stuff get in the way of your inherent skills as a kick-butt storyteller. Move the reader, make them happy and sad and excited and scared. Make them stare into space after they've put the book down, thinking about the tale that's become a part of them.

I like to be surprised. Fresh implications and plot twists erupt as a story unfolds. Characters develop backgrounds, adding depth and feeling. Writing feels like exploring.

I think that the mark of a great book is that it will meet you wherever you're at and you'll feel and experience something new and different each time you read it.

Granted there are only seven stories in the universe. And I agree with that. But give me a great variation of those stories. And literate.

You can be moved by an animated film and not by a live action film. There could be great inspiration in and humanity in that animated story.

This is the story, this is your character, I have the sense of the landscape, I have the sense of the scene, I have all that stuff. But I'm also looking for something else to happen, an accident or something. You're focused on the story you intend to tell and then you have to have a peripheral net out to catch these accidents.

If you create a good story that has a lot of story value... I think audiences like that. It's why they stick with the same TV show over and over.

In particular, I'm drawn to the stories that have big, high concepts and real characters at their heart. And I love where those two worlds meet, and 'Edge of Tomorrow' is the perfect canvas to explore that.

Fiction connects: past and present; the great and the small; the surface with the depths. Fiction brings out the innermost, invisible springs of life that cannot be revealed in factual narratives.

What can I say: I'm a writer - I enjoy forcing pain and suffering on my characters!

The basic quality that any great story must have is a story that illustrates the human condition.

I think that's what fiction writing is actually all about. It's about trying to solve problems in creative ways.

I love the idea of real-life experiences finding their way into fiction. I think that's really cool.

The key is a good story. If you have a good story, you have enough emotional beats that you can hit.

Successful fiction does not need to be validated by 'real life'; I cringe whenever a writer is asked how much of a novel is 'real'.

The thing about the 'Melrose' novels is that I have to feel they're impossible when I set out.

What's great about well-written material is, if you can shock with justifiable actions, that's the best.

In any genre you're working in, you can always find a way to tell a particular kind of story. I love fantasy; I love science fiction. I love all kinds of fiction, in fact.

The world of fiction is a sovereign world that comes to life in the author's head and follows the rules of art, of literature. And that is the major difference that is reflected in the form of the work, in its language and its plot. An author invents every aspect of a fiction, every detail.

Fiction works when it makes a reader feel something strongly.

I want the reader to feel something is astonishing. Not the 'what happens,' but the way everything happens. These long short story fictions do that best, for me.

I don't read much nonfiction because the nonfiction I do read always seems to be so badly written. What I enjoy about fiction - the great gift of fiction - is that it gives language an opportunity to happen.

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.

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.

For me, the best moments in storytelling are the ones where I feel I'm discovering something.