Steven Knight Quotes

Every film you're commissioned to write is all about an arc; usually, the arc is that the world creates a change in the character, usually for the better. To not have an arc, the messages and ideas in the film became more prominent.

I don't think they knew exactly where they were going with the character, but they lay those stories out ahead of time, so they had some idea where they wanted it to go.

I love the trilogy form. I like the idea that you can establish a character in book one. And then in the second part, you can take the characters down to their darkest point. And then in the third part, you have total freedom either to give them redemption - or just to kill them.

It's rare that I actually have a story in my head. I have events or 'what's the next move?' Like, Maggie, 'where's she going to go in this story, where's she going to end up?' Then the story has to fill in the in-between, and that comes as I'm starting it.

When I approached Volume 1 of 'Lucid,' I realized I could tell something that only exists in four issues, or I could roll the dice a bit and approach this as Season 1 of a TV show.

You have 22 episodes to start from zero to hero; you can really take a nice, big, long arc. In a film, it's tough to do that - you only have 90 minutes.

I'm a firm believer in stories with arcs and beginnings and endings and all that. 'Scott Pilgrim' is sort of one long novel, and it's so long that I get confused and sort of tread water sometimes. But there's definitely a goal to it. People who just dismiss it as shallow, that's their prerogative, but it's not really my intent.

For me, one thing I love is having an arc for a character.

Whenever you're blessed and given a second season, you can really let the characters evolve. That first season, you're setting everything up. It's background, where they're coming from, what they want to do. And then you get to marinate in it that second season.

What you would call a 'lead,' I've always considered a supporting part, and what people would call 'supporting parts,' I've considered leads. In a way, I look at it in reverse, because supporting parts - when they're done correctly - are the ones that are progenitors for storylines, to move forward.

If a character is going to end up one way, you start them a certain way. If they're gonna end up the polar opposite of that, you might start them differently to have dramatic integrity to their journey.

You can do all of the world-building you want; at the end of the day, what's important is the heart and the drive of the story and the heart and the drive of the characters.

I try to approach all episodic work the same. No matter the content. I look for a dramatic or emotional spine to the story I'm telling, something that stands out to me thematically about the episode and its relationship to the rest of the season/series.

It's always useful to know that people are emotionally invested in a series because it means that you can take them down a certain road, and they should be interested.

I usually have a sense of where my characters are personally and ways in which they might transform throughout the novel. But I never know at the outset how the book will end, nor do I ever stick to my original plan.

I'm a stickler for structure. So I tend to make sure I'm hitting certain points in the script and that I'm progressing and moving things along. You know, are the characters keeping the plot moving along? And are they true, and do I know their motivations?

In the English books, the American kids' books, typically, there is a problem, the characters grapple with that problem, and the problem is resolved.

Character is plot, plot is character.

Hopefully, I'll be a part of ABT, in some way, forever. I think I'll always be a part of ballet and try to push diversity, for as long as I live.

I would say plotting is the most difficult thing for me. Characterization is only hard because sometimes I feel I get so interested in it that I want to talk too much about the characters and that slows the story down. So I say, "Hey, people want to find out what's going to happen next, they don't want to listen to you spout off about this or that person." But I think even the bad guy deserves to tell his side of the story.

What drew me to Batman in the first place was Bruce Wayne's story, and that he's a real character whose story begins in childhood. He's not a fully formed character like James Bond, so what we're doing is following the journey of this guy from a child who goes through this horrible experience of becoming this extraordinary character. That, for me, became a three-part story. And obviously the third part becomes the ending of the guy's story.

I don't think plot as a plot means much today. I'd say that everybody has seen every plot twenty times. What they haven't seen is characters and their relation to one another. I don't worry much about plot anymore.

Typically with HBO shows, the ninth episode often winds up being a big one and when lots of exciting stuff happens. And then the tenth one is the more placid, character-based one.

I didn't want to just write a series - I wanted to write an epic, on story that spans three books, where decisions made in the first impact the last.

I find that when people get a script, they know within five pages if the writer can write. Once you're five pages in, it doesn't matter whose name is on the cover, you're not even thinking about it.