Gayle Lynds Quotes

Pacing is not the sort of thing you can plan out beforehand, but you're always aware of it as you write, because you need to make constant decisions.

I think that there's always a time to be tongue-in-cheek, and there's always time for humor, but there's a time to be serious and a time for emotional content.

Attitude and the spirit in which we communicate are as important as the words we say.

It becomes pretty crystal clear once you watch that first assembly [movie cut] the things that are just grinding it to a halt, so to speak, or slowing it down, or getting in the way, yeah.

The only place where you can really surprise or shock the reader, or make someone laugh, is on the lower righthand corner - the very last panel - so as you turn the page, the payoff is in the upper lefthand panel. To pace every story so that there's a setup and a payoff at the page turn was a huge challenge; it's a part of the medium and you really have to learn what can be done in the medium.

What they frequently want to do with a movie is, they want to cut out the valleys and just show the peaks. And valleys are important; the valleys make the peaks stand out.

It is not fair to treat as serious that which is only said in joke.

The Unexpected always comes at the most awkward times.

I think you gotta have some humor [in your story]. People gotta have a moment to laugh and feel that it's not taken 100% serious. That's important.

It is not important to have said a thing first, or best - or even most interestingly. What is important is to say it on the right occasion.

There's the internal rhythm within a sequence, and then there's the rhythm between the sequences, and that's extremely important in constructing the narrative. For example, you don't put two big dramatic scenes right next to each other. But you can use the rhythm of the transition shots; they can often serve a double purpose.

Humor is necessary - it allows the reader to come up for air before dunking them under again. I need humor and I need it on the page to keep the reader going.

The secret to comedy is not playing the comedy, but actually playing the situation, playing the drama of it.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But there is always a time and a place for the subsets within genres.

You really don’t want to take that tone with me. (Varyk) Well, I do have several others we can choose from. Contemptuous. Angry. Snide. Aggravated. How about I just settle on extreme sarcasm and we call it even? (Dev)

One of the glories of doing the book So You Want to Be President? was the shifts in tone, where I was able to be humorous and then very serious. And the impeachment page is certainly the best example of that. I didn't have to think too much about how to present this one. I got the idea right away that a good way of showing the shame of President Nixon would be to put him down in the shadows under the Lincoln Monument, with Lincoln sort of glaring down at him from an elevated, better-lit position.

Dialogue in fiction should be reserved for the culminating moments and regarded as the spray into which the great wave of narrative breaks in curving towards the watcher on the shore.

I love drama - I would say more than I even love comedy - but I like in One Mississippi that I can go from a very moving moment to a Willy Wonka tube up my ass. I like the silliness as much as I like drama.

I've noticed that when people are joking they're usually dead serious, and when they're serious, they're usually pretty funny.

There are times when sense may be unseasonable, as well as truth.

Self-control is the ability to restrain a laugh at the wrong place.

Pace is crucial. Fine writing isn't enough. Writing students can be great at producing a single page of well-crafted prose; what they sometimes lack is the ability to take the reader on a journey, with all the changes of terrain, speed and mood that a long journey involves. Again, I find that looking at films can help. Most novels will want to move close, linger, move back, move on, in pretty cinematic ways.

Ruefulness is one of the classical tones of American fiction. It fosters a native, deglamorized form of anxiety.

You have to find your tone and work within that to make it as real so the audience can really engage in the story you're telling.