Narrative Risk Quotes

You put a character out there and you're in their power. You're in trouble if they're in yours.

Anyone can die. Rule number one is don't get too attached to a character, anyone can go.

I will say that Rick will probably die before the end of the book. I'll go ahead and put that in print. Nobody's safe. I've almost killed him three times already.

Every time you try to create an experience with a character who doesn't use a gun, doesn't drive a car, doesn't jump off platforms, doesn't solve puzzles, you are taking a risk.

Well, if you're writing a thriller, you have to have your character in mortal jeopardy on page 1 or it's not a thriller.

As a writer, I feel like your favorite character shouldn't be safe.

I didn't like filtering the story through me, saying, 'Reader, you'll be safe with me. While it gets a little dangerous, it'll be okay because, after all, you're with me, because I'm a warm convivial voice. But let's be entertained by this horrible stuff.' I didn't like that.

I think it gets really dangerous, though, to do it on the show. I think that the writers and producers are very much aware of that and the dangers of putting characters together and what that can mean for the show. You know, it's possible it could kill the thing that holds the show together, the chemistry, sexual tension between the two characters.

every short story is an experiment - what one must ask is not only, did it come off, but was it, as an experiment, worth making?

One must never assume that a character is sympathetic because of either the actor playing them or the fact that they're a lead. I think that's a recipe for failure, actually, because if they become unsympathetic, you lose your audience.

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.

I think you always need to take new, big risks from a storytelling point of view.

Fatal human malice is the staple of narrators, original sin the mother-fluid of historians. But it is a risky enterprise to have to write of virtue.

I didn't think of the narrative as making a judgment. It didn't occur to me the reader would either, but that doesn't mean it isn't possible there would be that risk.

I think I would much rather push the boundaries of the degradation that the characters face.

It's a good thing about George R.R. Martin: He's prepared to kill off the main guys. You don't get the feeling that the good guy is going to last forever, like James Bond.

By the time you have your protagonist attempting to assassinate the Pope, you've sort of signaled that everything is on the table.