Storytelling Dynamics Quotes

A reader should encounter themselves in a novel, I think.

How [stories] are told, who tells them, when they’re told, how many stories are told — are really dependent on power.

You can't tell a good story without conflict - the story can't be beautiful or meaningful. We're taught to run from conflict, and it's robbing us of some really good stories.

But after all, the villains are the salt in the soup of a story.

The film depends on the audience's belief in this relationship.

What's important is that a story changes every time you say it out loud. When you put it on paper, it can never change. But the more times you tell it, the more changes will occur. A story is a living thing; it moves and shifts

A tale from which pieces have been raked out is like a fire that has been poked. One does not know the operation has been performed, but everyone feels the effect.

We may be willing to tell a story twice, never to hear it more than once.

To me, storytelling is a mystery. Especially when you're directing.

People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it's the other way around.

I feel like I don't understand time in novels, really. I bumble forward, is all.

Not all stories translate well when read out loud.

I think a lot of people want me to be like the characters in the books: they want that kind of congruence.

There's really powerful and potentially dominating forces when you make a film that can harm it if you're incapable of orchestrating things.

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.

A story is a living thing, it moves and shifts.

I like working in television because it's an evolving story that you tell. That's also one of the things I don't like about it, too. Because sometimes it's hard, and just when I think I've nailed something, it changes or we have to change it or change the joke or the character is evolving in a way that I don't have control over.

I'm such a dork, but I really think there are derivatives to be found between story arcs and character motivations. And the way you evaluate functions is a really interesting way to look at stories and the way you act. I really believe it.

Rather than a taste for the macabre, I like the full range of human emotion in a story, which means darkness and light. It means warmth, but it also potentially means scares.

The last collaborator is your audience ... when the audience comes in, it changes the temperature of what you've written. Things that seem to work well -- work in a sense of carry the story forward and be integral to the piece -- suddenly become a little less relevant or a little less functional or a little overlong or a little overweight or a little whatever. And so you start reshaping from an audience.

In thinking about it, the villains often have a little bit more range because their morality is different. You can have just a really good time as an actor, and there is just more there that you can explore on that side of the story.