Chris Bohjalian Quotes

Everything in a story should be credible.

Ironically, in today's marketplace successful nonfiction has to be unbelievable, while successful fiction must be believable.

Emotional honesty transcends reality; it's what allows disbelief to be suspended and yet what makes a story stay true.

If it's fiction, then it better be true.

The problem with fiction, it has to be plausible. That's not true with non-fiction.

In writing, I search for believability, simplicity and emotional impact.

I'm writing about real things. Real people. Real characters. You have to believe what I write about is true or you wouldn't pay any attention at all. Sometimes it's me, or a composite of me and other people. Sometimes it's not me at all.

In order to deliver the emotional truth in the story, you have to include some of the literal truth.

My first duty to write a gripping yarn. Second is to convey credible characters who make you feel what they feel. Only third comes the idea.

I sing songs that I have lived or I write them because I have lived them. I think the believability factor is key.

I look at scripts really for whether they can be moving or penetrate some kind of truth. You are constantly chasing that feeling as an actor when every part of a production comes together.

Things have to be believable, not in a literal, photographic sense, but in an emotional sense - capturing the essence of the situation.

No matter how close to personal experience a story might be, inevitably you are going to get to a part that isn't yours and, actually, whether it happened or not becomes irrelevant. It is all about choosing the right words.

I can't speak for readers in general, but personally I like to read stories behind which there is some truth, something real and above all, something emotional. I don't like to read essays on literature; I don't like to read critical or rational or impersonal or cold disquisitions on subjects.

An actor puts himself in the hands of a director. And the director's first responsibility, obviously, is to tell the story, but the smallest thing that's not true reads on the screen. So if a director sees that an actor is not believable, he needs to help him become believable.

When I write for kids, I have to make sure they know what can't happen. They have to know it's a fantasy. But when I write for adults, they have to think it's real. Every detail has to be real or they won't buy it.

I used to say to my bubbe, 'Bubbe, is this story true?' And she'd say, 'Of course it's true! But it may not have happened.' What my bubbe was saying is profound: All stories are true. The truth is the journey you take through it - did it make you laugh, cry, seek and want justice? Then it's true.

People want real-life stories.

I think the best way to sell a made-up character is to plant his feet into the real earth.

You can fake a lot of stuff, but you can't fake if the story isn't there and if the writing isn't good.

In the end, it's about the reality. You want something that's believable in the performances; you want something that's believable in the storytelling, in the writing. You just want to connect to something that you feel is real.

They say truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, but there's such a thing as believability when you're writing a novel.

In 'Letters from Iwo Jima,' there were times when I told Eastwood, 'This is just not believable.'

We have no filter for music, but we feel it when what's being spoken and sung is telling a story and evidencing a character.

Real life doesn't have to be convincing, but fiction does.