Quotes About Narrative

In the long revolt against inherited forms that has by now become the narrative of 20th-century poetry in English, no poet was more flamboyant or more recognizable in his iconoclasm than Cummings.

History is, of course, a made thing. It does not exist by itself in anything like a recognizable form.

A lot of the stories I've read about myself, I don't even recognize who they're writing about.

Artists and the traditional record company model are at odds. The music business has notoriously taken from the artist. That shouldn't be the narrative.

Legends are material to be moulded, and not facts to be recorded.

Commanded by God dozens of times in the Hebrew Bible to remember their past, Jews historically obeyed not by recording events but by ritually re-enacting them: by understanding the present through the lens of the past.

In America, the photographer is not simply the person who records the past, but the one who invents it.

American exceptionalism is the recurring character in the nation's narrative.

The only problem with the way they do my character is that they have her get redeemed too early.

Most action is based on redemption and revenge, and that's a formula. Moby Dick was formula. It's how you get to the conclusion that makes it interesting.

The redemption plot is one of the oldest story shapes.

I didn't like '12 Years a Slave' because it was playing to the Spielbergian model of redemption.

American writers reduce the length of time devoted to exposition and character development.

Referring to ISIL as a destructive religious cult rather than a legitimate theo-political 'radical Islamic' group is not just more accurate, it also exposes ISIL's corrupt religious narrative.

With 'Hannibal,' it's almost like the music is part of the furniture, so as a character goes from one room to another room, or we go from one place to another or whatever, the music is just going with it the whole time the same way that the audience is sort of tracking it and following along.

I don't write about the same thing every time, everyday, different things are happening out there and if you take the time to look around, you can see that, then you can put it all together and tell the story.

I write, having seen what's happening already in my head. I see it as a movie, and I'm just writing down what's happening in front of me.

I've always said the thing about MMA that a lot of fighters don't understand is people care more about the story, about why a fight's happening, than the actual fight.

The characters don't all have to be likable, and they don't all have to be hateable. As long as it's interesting and you connect to them and they resonate with you and you want to find out what happens and it feels authentic, then we have something.

Well, I must tell you I write the scripts very close to the bone. So I'm writing episode seven now and couldn't tell you what happens in episode eight.

I felt that as long as we were being honest, and that we didn't bend the truth to accomplish another goal, to be entertaining or to be a happy ending, I was confident that we'd be able to tell the story the way it happened.

I don't know that happy people are interesting to write about - or to read about.

Nothing is harder to dramatize than happiness.

Obviously, I like to write stories that are page-turners. But I always try my very, very hardest to be as factually true as possible.