Daniel Espinosa Quotes

I think my sensibilities about storytelling and character just automatically come into play when I'm trying to work on any kind of narrative. For me, it doesn't really matter what the source of the narrative is. I will be looking for ways to make it into an intriguing story with empathetic characters.

My characters are not thinking about the act breaks. They're thinking about what they need to do to move forward. As long as I focus on that, the story starts to progress. As soon as I think, 'We're 20 pages in, something better blow up,' we're in trouble.

It's rare that I actually have a story in my head. I have events or 'what's the next move?' Like, Maggie, 'where's she going to go in this story, where's she going to end up?' Then the story has to fill in the in-between, and that comes as I'm starting it.

For me, screenwriting is all about setting characters in motion and as a writer just chasing them. They should tell you what they'll do in any scene you put them in.

Some novels present a story form many points of view. Most movies tell only one person's side of the story. Sometime it's easy to use the strongest point of view, or find the character with the most dramatic experience. It depends on which themes the scriptwriter wants to explore.

You always start a fight scene or an action scene with, 'What are we learning about this character at the moment, and how are we gonna arc him or her in the next three minutes,' and it's no different with 'Deadpool' or 'Atomic Blonde' or 'John Wick.'

If you create a movie that is only character driven, with a weak plot, then you - as a director, you have to make sure you keep pushing the tempo.

I don't make unconventional stories; I don't make non-linear stories. I like linear storytelling a lot.

I think I can speak with a degree of authority... today, the biggest driving force of movies is pace; God help you if you try to put in a scene that is about character and not plot.

I usually give a book 40 pages. If it doesn't grab me by then, adios. With young adult books, you can usually tell by Page 4 if it's worth the time. The author establishes the conflict early, sometimes in the first sentence. The themes of hope, family, friendship and overcoming hardship appeal to most everyone.

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

I really think if you take away a character's obstacles then there's no comedy.

An attempt to write nothing but characterization will soon bog down; I for one don't want to have somebody tell me about someone else.

This is the story, this is your character, I have the sense of the landscape, I have the sense of the scene, I have all that stuff. But I'm also looking for something else to happen, an accident or something. You're focused on the story you intend to tell and then you have to have a peripheral net out to catch these accidents.

I find screenplays easy to write, my novels being very visual. You see what people look like. The physical action is described.

I like films to be complete in their written form.

As a novelist, I'm endlessly fascinated by human behavior and interactions.

If you know exactly what your character knows, it's a drama.

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.

As a writer, I had learned a lot on 'Margin Call' about embracing the weaknesses of a narrative and of a project. A story always has an inherent narrative weakness.

I enjoy the writing process and producing; I enjoy seeing an idea come to fruition. I'm driven by very complex characters. You look at the pilot of 'Breaking Bad,' where there's so much depth to the character, you can't help but be invested when you watch.

In a lot of ways, TV writing taught me how to be a good storyteller. I learned about dialogue, scenes, moving the plot forward.

I tend not to know what the plot is or the story is or even the theme. Those things come later, for me.

When the characters are really alive before their author, the latter does nothing but follow them in their action, in their words, in the situations which they suggest to him.

Every movie that I do, if you analyze the stories, you can notice that in each story, that within the movie after the first 15 minutes, it could fall apart. Or every 10 minutes it has the chance that you lose the thread. On the other hand, if you succeed in putting them together, then the movie looks spontaneous and more like cinema.