Story Pace Quotes

I think that 'Vinyl''s faster-paced. I think 'Boardwalk' was much more luxurious in its storytelling.

I prefer ensemble casts, but with games like 'Resident Evil 6,' where there's just so much dialogue and recording mo-cap, or with 'Resident Evil: Damnation,' where the story pace is already set by a previous set of mo-cap actors, it makes more sense to do it individually.

I've enjoyed working on the TV series that I've worked on, in particular something like 'The Wire,' where there was so much time to tell the story and develop a character. I learned from that that it's best not to lay all your cards on the table straight away.

The narrative shouldn't stop for the song in a musical. The music has to continue the narrative of the storytelling.

Young adults are honest readers. They won't stay with a book unless they have a reason, so it has to move along.

At writing workshops, they taught us to show, not tell - well, showing takes time.

I would imagine that anyone picking up a book written by me would expect a fast-paced story that requires minimal effort to turn the pages. The reader would also be looking for some out-of-the-ordinary revelations along the way. At the end of the day, I'm a writer who simply loves revealing stuff that is out-of-the-ordinary.

I think about my audience when I write, to some extent. Thinking of writing for young adults, I try to keep the stories moving, never a dull moment, to hold their interest.

In general, I don't really think too much about pacing, myself. You kind of look at each script and what each script demands.

I'm very much about stories that are fast but character development that moves slow.

A lot of locked-room mysteries take time for you to pay attention and see the setup. They aren't thrillers, and they don't move along. The modern mystery story is really faster-paced, and I think modern readers tend to prefer seeing something happening on every other page.

Suspense is my thing. I think I am able to make people want to keep turning pages. They want to know what happens. So I can do that.

One of the only things that bothered me with WWE and being on every week was blowing off so many great storylines so fast, just out of necessity.

When you play guest parts, you play your story in a very urgent kind of way.

My characters are not thinking about the act breaks. They're thinking about what they need to do to move forward. As long as I focus on that, the story starts to progress. As soon as I think, 'We're 20 pages in, something better blow up,' we're in trouble.

I would say plotting is the most difficult thing for me. Characterization is only hard because sometimes I feel I get so interested in it that I want to talk too much about the characters and that slows the story down. So I say, "Hey, people want to find out what's going to happen next, they don't want to listen to you spout off about this or that person." But I think even the bad guy deserves to tell his side of the story.

No matter how wonderful the story, it has to move on something, and that is language. The words that I use, the pace, the rhythm and cadences all need to be there. If they're not there, the story is like a boat that just sits there and doesn't move on the ocean.

There has to be the right pacing of images to tell the story. I'm always stunned at how little you can put in.

I try to create characters people want to sit with, even if nothing is happening.

Once I start work on a project, I don’t stop and I don’t slow down unless I absolutely have to. If I don’t write every day, the characters begin to stale off in my mind – they begin to seem like characters instead of real people. The tale’s narrative cutting edge starts to rust and I begin to lose my hold on the story’s plot and pace. Worst of all, the excitement of spinning something new begins to fade. The work starts to feel like work, and for most writers that is the smooch of death.

Novels often have leisurely openings; a TV drama needs an arresting opening.

To me, if the writing doesn't have rhythm, it feels dead. I lose all confidence. The music has to emerge to feel confident enough to move on to the next major chapter.