Open-Ended Storytelling Quotes

Usually, you get a script and you have the whole story. All the acts are there, for a play. You know what happens in the first, second and third acts, and you know how it starts, where you go and where it finishes. [With American Horror Story: Asylum], it's a whole new experience. I don't know where it's going, and I don't know what's going to happen next. It's been an interesting way to work. It's made me work in a much more fluid, braver way, just taking every chance that comes along.

As a kid, I loved the idea of alternate possibilities, roads not taken, that sort of thing - and I think seeing the 'Adventure Time' universe rendered by the artists in those stories will scratch that same itch really well.

I'm the sort of writer who likes to leave doors open for readers.

A director should not define everything. For me, the movie is a form of a question I pose to the others or to the audience. I want to ask their opinion on my point of view and discuss it with them.

I think to truly not know what to expect out of the story - to create a world where nothing is guaranteed - is sort of the backbone of 'Atlanta.'

I think there are certain questions that get asked in comics over and over again, and people want definitive answers, but I feel like there shouldn't be definitive answers.

If you give an answer to your viewer, your film will simply finish in the movie theatre. But when you pose questions, your film actually begins after people watch it. In fact, your film will continue inside the viewer.

Every great story leaves you questioning. If all of the questions are answered, and everything is resolved, it's boring. There's nothing to talk about afterwards.

I find most American films annoy me because their third act tends to be tying up loose ends and returning to moral values and killing the monster. I think most of the scripts I read to tend to go in that direction and I find that very, very unsatisfying. I want the stories to have loose ends and to pose some questions - or even say things that aren't too comfortable.

I'm big into not drawing conclusions for people. I think that's what makes for the most exciting, compelling films. I get bored when the politics of the filmmaker are the subject of the film that I see.

My films are like clouds: their meaning keeps changing every minute.

I've done it with Broadcast News-where there was no finish line, there was no agenda that I had to move all the characters to this point, that I was sort of open to what happens.

To me, soul music is anything that is made from the heart, and therefore moves the listener; it's not overly self-aware, and leaves room for the listener to make their own conclusions.

You can kind of ask around for details. You might get a little information here and there, even from the other actors, or "One person heard that..." I feel like the writers are always leaving their options open.

[Steven Spielberg's films] are comforting, they always give you answers and I don't think they're very clever answers. The success of most Hollywood films these days is down to fact that they're comforting. They tie things up in nice little bows and give you answers, even if the answers are stupid, you go home and you don't have to think about it. The great filmmakers make you go home and think about it.

'Homeland' is necessarily open-ended since the idea behind television is to spend as much time as possible resolving as little as possible, with a story's usual need for resolution replaced by an unrelenting urgency that always defers answers and constantly postpones closure.

I love movies that ask big questions but don't necessarily answer everything. I like people walking out thinking about something.