Dramatic Tension Quotes

Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.

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

Character is plot, and casting is character.

Everyone thinks they can write a play; you just write down what happened to you. But the art of it is drawing from all the moments of your life.

Last, but not least -- in fact, this is most important -- you need a happy ending. However, if you can create tragic situations and jerk a few tears before the happy ending, it will work much better.

Once people start to think they've wasted parts of their life, or they're wasting their life as they speak, that means there's going to be great dramatic and comedic tension.

I write short stories, and I wrote a play.

I could watch 'There Will Be Blood' all day long, and Daniel Plainview is a terrible person - but he's still compelling to watch. That's what makes me want to engage and see what happens next.

Get into the scene late; get out of the scene early.

I started out as a poet who primarily wanted to write about image and moment. Over the years I've been trying to teach myself how to do plot and scene. My first story collection had the most issues with the plotlessness, and when I was writing my second collection I was teaching myself how to make things happen.

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.

I can work a lot faster when I'm writing a screenplay than when I'm writing a play because, if I'm having a problem with a scene or something, I can just be writing it in a way where there's no dialogue, or find a way to make sound do the work that I want to do or a close-up do the work that I need to do.

If in the first act you introduce a gun, by the third act you have to use it.

Remember: Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations. Plot is observed after the fact rather than before. It cannot precede action. It is the chart that remains when an action is through. That is all Plot ever should be. It is human desire let run, running, and reaching a goal. It cannot be mechanical. It can only be dynamic.

Every play is rhythmic control. If you want an audience to go on a journey, it's rhythmic control. You're crafting when they lean in, when they push back, when they breathe, when they surrender.

What can I say: I'm a writer - I enjoy forcing pain and suffering on my characters!

It's always more interesting to play the villain.

Here's what happens in a play. You get involved in a situation where something is unbalanced. If nothing's unbalanced, there's no reason to have a play. If Hamlet comes home from school, and his dad's not dead and asks him if he's had a good time, it's boring. But if something's unbalanced, it must be returned to order.

I agree with Scott Turow: A courtroom is inherently dramatic. You walk into court - it's like an ER, you know? Life and death is going on there. And it's moment-by-moment, and it's packed with energy. And even though you think you know what a witness is going to say, you can be wrong. Witnesses surprise you.

You always have three movies that you have to reduce into one. You have the screenplay. And then, you do a workshop and you add more scenes. And then, on the day you shoot, there's more action and interaction. It's like a souffle. It has a tendency to just grow and explode, and it's just too long.

It's hard to write a good play because it's hard to structure a plot. If you can think of it off the top of your head, so can the audience.

Theatre should be a taxing experience: the greatest achievement of a writer is to produce a character who creates anxiety.

For me, drama is conflict.

If there is a gun hanging on the wall in the first act, it must fire in the last.

Whatever the drama of the story is, you have to be true to it.