Story Evaluation Quotes

I wouldn't say I'm personally trying to transition from comedy into drama. I don't look at things like, 'Oh, I need to do a drama now.' I get a lot of material sent to me, and if I feel like something has the creative integrity and the right director and the right whoever involved, the right actors and is a great story, then I do it.

Usually when I read something, first of all I'm looking for the story and then when I reread it, I'm sort of checking every part of it to see if every scene is necessary.

Lots of people can write a good first page but to sustain it, that's my litmus test. If I flip to the middle of the book and there's a piece of dialogue that's just outstanding, or a description, then I'll flip back to the first page and start it.

For me, when my agents and reps send me a script, I read it through, just for the story purpose of it, and then I read it again to think of my character and see if it's something that I'm interested in bringing to life.

At the same time, reading an action script... It makes me wonder. Was The Matrix a good script? I don't know.

Normally when I'm sent a script I'll read it through to see how it hangs as a story and then I'll go back and read it through again and look at the character.

I usually read a script from an audience perspective first, and then look more closely at the character only.

I find that most novels are not good all the way through. A story can be good all the way through, every sentence.

An experienced slush-pile reader doesn't need more than a few seconds to see if a story has potential. You don't need to eat all of a rotten egg to determine that it's rotten.

When I first read the script to 'Black Hawk Down,' I didn't think it was the greatest thing in the world - far from it. But I thought the script at least raised some very important questions that are missing from the final product.

I believe the only way a writer can keep himself up to the mark is by examining each story quite coldly before he starts writing it and asking himself if it is all right as a story. I mean, once you go saying to yourself, 'This is a pretty weak plot as it stands, but I'm such a hell of a writer that my magic touch will make it okay,' you're sunk. If they aren't in interesting situations, characters can't be major characters, not even if you have the rest of the troop talk their heads off about them.

You have to look for story. That's obvious. If that's not on the page, you can forget it. But I also read whatever character I'm being offered. And if you can cut them out without it affecting the story, then I say no straight away.

I worked in script development, many years ago, and read a lot of scripts. Between that and the scripts I've read as an actor, and I'm a writer as well, I think I have a pretty good sense about whether the bones of a story are there and whether the structure is intact.

I look at the story and see what I have got to do in the film. Sometimes the story is great, set-up is good but there isn't much for you to do. I don't want to do that.

Sometimes you're not even sure which of your stories were failures. There are things I've written that I thought were complete catastrophes when I finished with them that have gone on to generate some of my most positive feedback.

I think first impressions are important when you pick up a script.

I can now tell from the envelope whether or not it is a good script.

Sometimes I realize halfway through a story, I'm like, 'Why would anyone care about this? It's uninteresting.'

Sometimes if you tell me what a story is about in just a few sentences, I can tell you if it's going to be a success.

I read a lot of scripts, so I know by page 25 if I like it or not.

I think the way you become a good storyteller is to read a lot of stories and evaluate them in your own mind.

I don't want to do anything that puts my team members, my camera people or producers, in danger, so it's an ongoing dialogue on all the stories that we do.

As a family, we'd watch films and talk about people on screen - what was good or bad and whether you believed them and their stories. I loved that.

When you can state the theme of a story, when you can separate it from the story itself, then you can be sure the story is not a very good one.

I and Dil Raju guru have always wanted to work with each other. He had sent to me stories, 4-5 over the years, but somehow, something was not perfect with them. But when I listened to 'Nenu Local,' I felt the time had arrived.