Richard Helms Quotes

The first lie of fiction is that the author gives some order to the chaos of life: chronological order, or whatever order the author chooses.

I do think the challenge, in a way for me, is to write a narrative film and when you finish watching it you feel like it's a collage. You tell the narrative, you tell the story, but you feel like you've created this tapestry. But it also has a shape, a story.

I'm actually quite critical of the storytelling theme. I think all the storytellers are not storytellers.

I'm good at description and imparting flow to a story, but I don't necessarily understand the value of long scenes.

The trouble with telling a good story is that it invariably reminds the other fellow of a dull one.

My sister-in-law believes that few narratives are so tightly constructed that you can't skip boring bits and still keep abreast of what's going on.

As a rule, anyone who can tell a good story can write one, so there really need be no mistake about his qualification; such a man will be careful not to be wearisome, and to keep his point, or his catastrophe, well in hand.

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.

As a writer, my only responsibility is to tell a compelling story.

I get the beginning. I get the end. Then I write the middle. That's how I do it.

The point about a great story is that it's got a beginning, a middle and end.

It has always been something I could do, and it may seem odd that in my case I seem to create an interesting narrative and frustrate the reader's opportunities to follow it at every step.

I have the 'thing' worked out - the trick or the surprise or the pivotal fact. Then I just start somewhere and let the story work itself out.

My only conclusion about structure is that nothing works if you don't have interesting characters and a good story to tell.

I think a script is great when it starts with the structure and works with the structure without falling into the typical three-act system in which the audience is ahead of the movie. I hate that, but that is like 99% of what I read.

Well, I think if you're telling a story, a three act structure will just naturally emerge out of it. But I also love it when a film doesn't feel like it's anchored too rigidly to that structure and you feel like anything could happen.

There's only so many ways to tell a story before the story gets boring.

To combine telling an interesting story with brilliantly written characters is the most difficult thing to do.

Obviously, I love to do both contemporary and historical fiction. When a hint of a story grabs me, I try to go with it to see where it will take me whatever the setting.

Sometimes, I have themes that interest me or that touch on larger issues but, really, I'm just trying to figure out the plot, or how the characters work. I'm trying to make the best story I possibly can.

I have always argued, in a good novel, interesting things happen to interesting people.

Even if I never sold another book, I'd keep writing, because the stories are here, in my head. Stories that just need to be told. I love watching a plot unfold, and feeling the surprise when the unexpected happens.

If you don't have a story that will hold the audience, you won't have a successful show.

I really believe that studying organization, even in the form of studying detective story organization, is very, very valuable for a playwright, a budding playwright.

I think anything goes in fiction as long as it fits within the interior logic of the work itself and is presented in a disciplined manner.