Melvyn Bragg Quotes

Sometimes, I have themes that interest me or that touch on larger issues but, really, I'm just trying to figure out the plot, or how the characters work. I'm trying to make the best story I possibly can.

Of course, all writers draw upon their personal experiences in describing day-to-day life and human relationships, but I tend to keep my own experiences largely separate from my stories.

No, you don't have to start your play with a premise. You can start with a character or an incident, or even a simple thought. This thought or incident grows, and the story slowly unfolds itself. You have time to find your premise in the mass of your material later. The important thing is to find it.

I love writing both fiction and memoir. Both have unique challenges; bottom line, fiction is hard because you have to come up with the credible, twisty plot, and memoir is hard because you have to say something true and profound, albeit in a funny way.

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

It's hard to write a good plot, it's very hard.

The process of writing a story isn't about fair. It's about getting to the heart of your story, getting to the truth of it. It transcends ideals of fair and unfair, right and wrong.

You don't idea your way into a plot but plot your way into an idea.

What interests me in writing a novel is taking really remote voices, characters, and stories and beginning to create some kind of web.

Obviously, I love to do both contemporary and historical fiction. When a hint of a story grabs me, I try to go with it to see where it will take me whatever the setting.

If I ever wrote a script myself, it would be strongly emotional material.

Certainly 'The Judgment of Paris' was the novel in which I found my own voice.

The deepest failures any fiction writer is likely to have are failures of not quite comprehending the truth of the story that he or she is telling.

Any show I'm working on, I want the stories to always be about something, and to have the potential to be emotional. That's the kind of story that I like.

There are two questions that you ask yourself as a writer, and one of them is, 'But why?' The question that takes the book forward is, 'What if? What if x y or z happened? How would those characters react?'

You just write about things that happen.

'For Whom the Bell Tolls' was a problem which I carried on each day. I knew what was going to happen in principle. But I invented what happened each day I wrote.

It's all about letting the story take over.

I don't really approach stories to make them different from other stuff I've seen, I just try to get into the character, into his or her head. Try to make it as funny, as scary or as wild as I can so that I really like it.

What I have in advance are people I want to write about and a problem or problems that I see those people encountering and that I want to explore - it all proceeds sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, and scene by scene.

When you're writing a novel - at least the way I write is I work from what I would call 'emotional atmosphere,' ambiance to ambiance.

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

To write a story, I think you really have to open yourself up to the world.

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.

I love writing picture books and story books because of the exciting, visual life that artists and illustrators give to them. And most of all, I love writing novels because of the inner, emotional journeys that they take me on. Hopefully, the reader comes with me!