Austin Carlile Quotes

You always have to be ahead of the audience so that they have to always catch up and know the movie's not quite going exactly where you think it's going, or expecting it to be going.

To all of our viewers out there - expect the unexpected.

The writers are very good about misdirection and changeups, and that's what's great about it. We always think we know what's going to happen and then they throw a curveball that you don't see coming.

You think you know how this story is going to end, but you don't.

When I read the scripts, I'm always so excited to see what's going to happen because it's unpredictable.

Every once in a while, when the audience is expecting to see one thing, you have to show them something else.

The cloud never comes from the quarter of the horizon from which we watch for it.

Anything that is unexpected is the X-factor.

A reversal is just anything that's a surprise. It's a way of keeping the audience interested.

The trick is the paradox - turning your story inside out. Now if it is something that appears to be of total normality and then suddenly turns inside out and is a different thing all together then that's fun to write.

Nothing bores me more than books where you read two pages and you know exactly how it's going to come out. I want twists and turns that surprise me, characters that have a difficult time and that I don't know if they're going to live or die.

When I see an image in my head that compels me, where there's this mystery about what's going to happen next or could happen next, I'll be intrigued. There are so many scripts that you read, and you know exactly what's going to happen, and there aren't too many where you can't tell within the first 20 pages where it's going.

I like the idea of shows where I don't know where I'll be at the end of the season.

Jeff Eastin is good in that he'll tell me a plot twist that's coming up if he thinks it would be something Peter would know ahead of time, and if it's something that would be a surprise to Peter, I'll tell Jeff, 'Oh, don't tell me. I don't want to know.' And then it's exciting to read it and exciting to play it.

I don't want to know what happens in any movie that I go to see.

It's funny: I like being surprised as a reader, so it's difficult for me to spoil my own stuff.

If you like a story that's totally different and won't know which way it's going... where it's go ing to end up and which way it's going to take you, then I think my work fits the bill.

This is unexpected... like squirt from aggressive grapefruit.

I like a book better if I can't predict what's going to happen.

There's the moment in 'Saw' where I get up off of the floor at the end. That was shocking, because no one expects it. I thought they did that really, really well.

A good story will keep you wondering about what's happening, what's going on, where does this go? Now it's going to go that way, now it's going to go that way. It has to do that. If it's predictable, it's just boring.

I start with a character and a situation, but I don't know what's going to happen until I write it. Sometimes things happen that surprise me.

I really hate those books where the murderer turns out to be somebody you never heard of who pops up in the last chapter.

Nothing happens, and nothing happens, and then everything happens.