Gus Van Sant Quotes

I love the early process of asking questions about a story and deciding which questions matter most.

For me, 'The Hobbit' is an object lesson in storytelling, both in terms of characterization and story structure. It is an exemplar of storytelling in that regard.

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'm big on story structure. I studied with John Truby, who mapped out story by means of moral wants and needs, and that's what I do. Hey, so does John Irving.

And I don't want to begin something, I don't want to write that first sentence until all the important connections in the novel are known to me. As if the story has already taken place, and it's my responsibility to put it in the right order to tell it to you.

I used to say, read as much as you can. Now I say, read the best that you can, the stories that resonate with you, the books that are important to you. Try to read, not only as a reader, but also as a writer, to deconstruct how the author is telling his or her story.

There is nothing wrong with just telling the story.

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

Once you come up with a premise, you have to work out how it all happened. It's a bit like coming up with a spectacular roof design first. Before you can get it up there, you need to build a solid foundation and supporting structure.

A book begins with an image or character or situation that I care about deeply.

Your job as a writer is to find storylines, narrative structures, and characters to show the things that you believe rather than saying them or telling them.

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

Usually, when I read something, I'm looking for the story first. And then, when I re-read it, I check every part of it to see whether every scene is necessary. You imagine yourself watching the movie, to see whether or not you're losing the through-line of the story.

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.

I'm a big believer that the structure of stories should reflect the content of the story.

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

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

A short-story collection is harder to formulate pithy sentences about.

For someone who wants to write a story, they should go on thinking about the story. When it comes up to a level, where it has reached your neck that's when you should go about writing it.

I think all good short stories are about what it means to tell a good story.

There's a problem with narratives. Most that spring to mind are fictional.

If you go wrong in a novel, you can straighten it out in the next chapter. You don't have any room to do that in a novella.

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

I want to wake up one morning and know how to write page one, or page 10, or page 250. But I never seem to know how to do it. Every book is different and takes a different structure, style, process, etc. And relearning how to write is where the insanity comes from.

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.