Narrative Devices Quotes

I prefer to bring these to the service of story rather than to let them replace narrative.

There is commerciality in storytelling, even in a film or a piece of literature. These things exist. That's why stories came to be: to hold attention and, while you're not looking, you'll get hopefully some nutritional value that the author has been working up. That's narrative; that's passing stuff down.

I think all songs should have weather in them. Names of towns and streets, and they should have a couple of sailors. I think those are just song prerequisites.

I believe in characters as vehicles of exposition. Their voices are full of hidden clues, and I like to listen to them.

It's not in good taste to have talking ghosts in a grown-up novel.

I've been told by people I respect that flashbacks only work if they have their own narrative, but they can't be part of the present narrative.

My work as a screenwriter has influenced my fiction. Writing screenplays forces you to consider many elements regarding story structure and other narrative devices that can be used to enhance the infinitely more complex demands of a novel.

Some writers later, describing the events of that night and day, wrote that Wan'yen of the Altai had seen a spirit-dragon of the river and become afraid. Writers do that sort of thing. They like dragons in their tales.

I do think that narrative is very important - I think that we use narrative to organize the world around us, and so it does matter a lot what kinds of narratives we have in our inventories and which ones are reinforced so often and so strongly that we habitually reach for them without thinking.

Every Pixar movie has its own rules that viewers have to accept, understand, and enjoy understanding. The voices of the toys in the 'Toy Story' films, for example, are never audible to humans.

There's a problem with narratives. Most that spring to mind are fictional.

Stories are the rich, unseen underlayer of the most ordinary moments.

I'm a firm believer in the idea that there are a limited amount of human stories that we tell - there's about seven of them - and of course, there's variations on those stories, and they can take place in infinite places.

People think that I've committed myself to idealism, to solipsism, or to doctrines of the cabala, because I've used them in my tales. But really I was only trying to see what could be done with them. On the other hand, it might be argued that if I use them it's because I was feeling an affinity to them. Of course, that's true.

There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there's only narrative.

Storytelling and elegant style don't always go hand in hand.

I'm interested in ways that digital interfaces can be utilized as powerful narrative devices, and to engage people in new and exciting ways.

I like to tell stories that have beginnings, middles and ends.

The metaphors exist for the stories.

True stories are way more interesting.

Narratives are very important to me.

I'm very interested in foundational narratives.

I focus on the elements of a movie that are meant to invisibly affect me as a viewer. The edges. As an author, I'm aware of how the subconscious things can pluck at a reader's emotions, and I love it when filmmakers do the same.

I think people are always saying things are 'over.' Fiction has been regularly 'over' since the 19th century.

When you do not have the dialogue to explain things, you will use everything to show and to tell the story. I think that this is what makes you believe that it is impeccable.