Story Evolution Quotes

Often it doesn't occur to you what kind of novel you're writing until quite late on.

As with most of my work, I started from the abstract, from research, building an intellectual model that slowly became internalized when the characters came alive. It's fascinating what happens to the model you've so assiduously assembled when characters are allowed to run rampant: things you thought essential are broken and other things are vastly improved.

When your characters are really living they tell you what they do.

I was too lazy to start a whole new story, so I just stuck a princess into the story I was working on... and The Princess Diaries was born!

I go straight into shooting with a script that's 80 per cent complete and I wait for my characters to grow on me before I finalise the climax.

The moment comes when a character does or says something you hadn't thought about. At that moment he's alive and you leave it to him.

I know some things when I start. I know, let's say, that the play is going to be a 1970s or a 1930s play, and it's going to be about a piano, but that's it. I slowly discover who the characters are as I go along.

As society evolves, people are interested in a new take on an old beloved story.

Film becomes a living organism. After awhile, it begins to tell you what it needs, and you're usually best listening.

It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.

There's a film you write, there's a film you shoot, and there's a film that you cut - and they're all different.

Fantasy stories have almost always been very white and European-focused, and we wanted to tell a story that would feel both more modern and more global. We wanted to attract a diverse audience.

Keep your central character moving, discovering, learning.

Sometimes you write and you find yourself almost wondering how it will turn out. I don't think every writer sort of almost admits that at some stage his books can take on their own kind of life it selves and simply lead away into directions that they're not kind of prepared for.

Novels demand a certain complexity of narrative and scope, so it's necessary for the characters to change.

Though the Grimms kept about 100 of the tales from the first edition, they changed them a good deal.

First comes an idea. Then, characters begin to evolve out of the landscape of that idea. And then, finally, characters dominate: plot is simply a function of what these people might do or be. Everything has to flow from their personalities; otherwise it will not be emotionally engaging, or plausible.

What I learned in 'Sons' is that I would come in with a blueprint of a season and how it would go, and I realized that the looser my grip was, the better it became because the story found itself. Things happened as I wanted them to in terms of the bigger mile markers, but the fun part was I never knew how we would get there.

If you take a few days to write an outline, you're just making up scenes that you think will work, that you think will be interesting. But as you write it, other ideas occur - better ideas that have to do with what you're writing.

What the Greeks and Romans considered myths, we consider fairy tales. We can see how very clearly the myths, which emanated from all cultures, had a huge influence on the development of the modern fairy tale.

Time is what makes good stories. Much has been cooking for a long time, and at last finds an out in narration one day. That's a supreme joy. And why the characters keep showing up.

One of the interesting things about 'Saw' is that you don't find out about things in sequential or linear order. One of the things that fans have liked a lot is, we don't forget about details. They come back and reveal themselves as the story evolves.

I always tell my students that, in fiction, the opening is a clue to the work's DNA: not only what it is, but what it will become, where it will lead you.

I think there's always this idea in your head, but you have to allow the film to take its own course.

When they do bring on new people, it's good for the show. It's like getting a new toy. The writers enjoy it because it's a whole new character that they can write for, one that they aren't used to writing for. They can try different things.