Quotes About Adaptation

Game Over is a very frustrating game convention. In short, it means, 'If you were not good enough or did not play the game the way the designer intended you to play, you should play again until you do it right.' What kind of story could a writer tell where the characters could play the same scene ten times until the outcome is right?

I read 'The Last Wish' and really loved it. But I never would have called myself a fantasy writer before this. I've done some comic book shows, I've done a lot of drama. So when I read the book I loved it but never thought I should adapt it personally.

I like to dissociate myself from the person I was even three hours ago. It's a natural requirement to be a writer.

It's always hard when you're playing someone for a lot of people out there who are going to see the movie after reading the books. There's a communion between a reader and the writer, so people will have an idea who Sirius Black is and I might not be everyone's idea of that.

I've learned to accept that I'm a children's writer, even if it's not what I set out to become. It's what I should have been all along, and I'll stay in this role as long as I'm a writer.

I was going to be a writer, and that turned into journalist. And then that turned into a career in children's literature, which turned into early childhood education, which turned into psychology, which turned into premed, which turned into nursing school, which turned into communication, which turned into marketing and advertising.

I couldn't enjoy 'A Dance With Dragons,' unfortunately. Of course, I enjoyed it, but it was the first of the books I read as a writer on 'Game of Thrones,' so all I could do is think, 'We're going to have to shift that,' 'We won't be able to afford that,' or 'That's a great scene.'

As a writer, I think about films I work on in a traditional Hollywood kind of a way. I'm curious to see how it translates.

The Osage have this lovely phrase: 'Travelers in the Mist.' It was the term for part of an Osage clan that would take the lead whenever the tribe was venturing into unfamiliar realms. And, in a way, we are all travelers in the mist. The challenge is that, as writers, we sometimes want to ignore this murkiness, or we want to write around it.

Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.

Princess Rose should indeed be a TV movie, assuming something doesn't go wrong. I don't know how good a movie it will be, because the way movie folk think is different from the way writers think, and I distrust what isn't done my way. This is what I call a healthy paranoia.

It has been generally the custom of writers on natural history to take the habits and instincts of animals as the fixed point, and to consider their structure and organization as specially adapted to be in accordance with them.

If you lined up 10 writers and asked them to write a movie about Steve Jobs, you'd get 10 very different movies.

Writers are not always right however, but then again, I've been on shows where the actors have complete control and change everything and it's terrible.

I got a crash-course education in urban fantasy. I suddenly had to look up all these other writers I was supposed to be in a genre with. I instantly had to become an expert in this genre I knew almost nothing about.

There may be something to the suggestion about the pace of technological change intimidating writers, though - it's been awfully hard to keep ahead of real developments.

You could name the great stars of the silent screen who were finished; the great directors gone; the great title writers who were washed up. But remember this, as long as you live: the producers didn't lose a man. They all made the switch. That's where the great talent is.

All I can say is that I am not one of those writers who want 100% of their book in the film. I recognize that film is a different medium and the filmmaker must have the right to bring some new elements to the table, provided the soul of the book is preserved.

I thought, because of 'The 100' and 'Apocalypse,' that I knew everything about what life after an apocalypse would be - but Ryan Murphy and the writers of 'American Horror Story' have shown a whole other side of an apocalypse.

Science fiction in particular is often assumed to be about the future, or about some abstract technological or philosophical idea, or just about 'adventure,' but writers can't build worlds out of nothing. We use bits and pieces of the real world to assemble our fictional ones.

I think it's our job as writers for Marvel Comics to continue to create those type of stories that can be mined instead of just trying to give readers exactly what they see on film.

I don't know if she should worry too much, I mean some of our greatest writers have had movies made of their books, lots of Hemingway novels were turned into movies, it doesn't hurt the book.

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.

Because if someone writes something and they have decided this is what it is, it's my job to make it work unless it's way out of left field.