Chet Williamson Quotes

I like to be surprised. Fresh implications and plot twists erupt as a story unfolds. Characters develop backgrounds, adding depth and feeling. Writing feels like exploring.

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

The greatest compliment a writer can be given is that a story and character hold a reader spellbound. I'm caught up in the story writing and I miss a good deal of sleep thinking about it and working out the plot points.

The idea behind a dish - the delight and the surprise - makes a difference. Great literature surprises and delights, and provokes us. It isn't just 'Here's the facts - boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl.' It's how you tell it.

Granted there are only seven stories in the universe. And I agree with that. But give me a great variation of those stories. And literate.

Taking nuances from real life will help you make scenes that have never been done before. It keeps the story interesting.

The element of surprise is the most important thing and what keeps me interested in writing. I can feel it if I've written that predictable or boring line, and I will carry that around with me all day.

I began to ask two questions while I was reading a book that excited me: not only what was going to happen next, but how is this done? How is it that these words on the page make me feel the way I'm feeling? This is the line of inquiry that I think happens in a child's mind, without him even knowing he has aspirations as a writer.

The biggest challenge of my career, which is something that authors of genre fiction face all the time, is writing something fresh and new and at the same time meeting reader expectations.

There's no game plan when it comes to thinking up new characters; inspiration can come from anything - from a wig I've seen to an expression I've heard someone use.

In older science fiction stories, they had to rely on storytelling as opposed to spectacle. The old run of the 'Twilight Zone,' the star was the writing and the storytelling, and the characters and the twists and the cleverness in the setup and payoff and execution.

I sort of love reading the scripts and going, 'Oh wow, what a great idea. I never would have thought of that.'

I like people to be surprised by the turn of events. I don't want things just to be pat and formulaic. If there's some sort of internal combustion in the character or a desire to change the way things are going, that makes for conflict, which is the essence of drama.

When I give myself over to a good novel, I surrender to the truths fashioned from one writer's heart, mind and soul. I do not waste a nanosecond wondering whether what I'm reading 'really happened.'

As far as what readers can expect with 'Maybe Someday,' I'm not the type of writer who writes to educate or inform my readers. I simply write to entertain them.

I think kids want the same thing from a book that adults want - a fast-paced story, characters worth caring about, humor, surprises, and mystery. A good book always keeps you asking questions, and makes you keep turning pages so you can find out the answers.

I'm one of those crazy people, if I'm watching the trailer for a movie and I'm really excited by it, I'll turn it off because I don't want to know anything. I want to be surprised because I love that more than knowing anything.

I am influenced by books which don't have their eye on the endgame, but which try to be entertaining on each and every page.

That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing. It is my way of judging what I am doing - which is never an easy thing to do.

I prefer to surprise myself as I'm writing. I'm not interested in it if I already know where it's going. So I have only the most general sense of what I'm doing when I start a story. I sometimes have a destination in mind, but how the story is going to go from Point A to Point Z is something I make up as I go along.

My instinct is to absolutely recoil when talking about writing in a mechanistic way. Nothing could be dumber than writing a film or TV script based on prescriptions, on other peoples' ideas of what character should be.

A story to me means a plot where there is some surprise. Because that is how life is - full of surprises.

I realized how wonderful YA is and how I really wanted to write something that created that level of intrigue.

I like making stories and characters that people can relate to. I also like giving the audience a departure from whatever they're thinking about in their life and enjoying a show or a movie.

It's a trifle hard to surprise yourself with a story you've written.