Quotes About Storytelling

I'm not a big fan of there being voiceovers in movies. I really prefer it when the film tells it story.

The best thing I could say is you do have to be a really good listener. If I go to a family reunion, and there's 400 people there, everybody comes up and tells me their stories, right? And I think that when you're a good listener, and you can imagine how someone's talking, dialogue is your key friend, is it not?

That's what makes a good show. It doesn't target one group. It tells a story everyone gets.

I am quite a dreamer, and usually when someone tells a story, I tend to get distracted easily.

I enjoyed working with Vikram Kumar, as he is an amazing director who is full of ideas, and he tells me that he has different compartments in his brain in which he places different story ideas and works on them simultaneously.

Be a good listener in the special way a story requires: note the manner of presentation; the development of plot, character; the addition of new dramatic sequences; the emphasis accorded to one figure or another in the recital; and the degree of enthusiam, of coherence, the narrator gives to his or her account.

Sometimes we try to get our students into an analytic frame of mind, and we onder why they get bored after awhile! I've had a great reaction from some of the kids when I do a summary of a story, and then ask the kids if that story gets any bells going in their heads — gets them thinking about their own lives. that's when they start paying attention, and that's when they'll speak up.

The story is the same, over and over, only the facts are different and the names and the places.

He didn't have to maintain his pride or protect his image. I wasn't his parent or his priest, so he had no obligation to confess. I didn't judge him, so he had no reason to be defensive. I didn't expect him to be anyone, so he had no reason to be anyone but himself. He just needed to get those stories out, to purge an evil spirit.

When my fictional characters can't slash and slog and litter the pages with one another's carcasses, I'm an utter flop as a tale-spinner.

It's not the story though, not the friend leaning toward you, saying "And then I realized—," which is the part of stories one never quite believes. I had the idea that the world's so full of pain it must sometimes make a kind of singing. And that the sequence helps, as much as order helps— First an ego, and then pain, and then the singing.

History is nothing but the lies we tell about our ancestors

Rumor is the ancient Latin word for contagious narrative.

I get annoyed when a self-indulgent writer just shows off what he knows but doesn't really tell a story. To me storytelling is first a craft. Then if you're lucky, it becomes an art form. But first, it's got to be a craft.. You've got to have a beginning, middle and end. And I have sort of applied the theatrical principles to writing. Throw the story in the air and see what's going to happen.

Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.

An archetypal story creates settings and characters so rare that our eyes feast on every detail, while its telling illuminates conflicts so true to humankind that it journeys from culture to culture.

Quality storytelling inspires quality dialogue.

The weakest possible excuse to include anything in a story is: "But it actually happened." Everything happens; everything imaginable happens. Indeed, the unimaginable happens. But story is not life in actuality. Mere occurrence brings us nowhere near the truth. What happens is fact, not truth. Truth is what we think about what happens.

Who are these characters? What do they want? Why do they want it? How do they go about getting it? What stops them? What are the consequences? Finding the answers to these grand questions and shaping them into story is our overwhelming creative task.

In storytelling, logic is retroactive.

You must shape your story in a way that both expresses your vision and satisfies the audience's desires.

Superficial knowledge leads to a bland, monotonous telling. With authorial knowledge we can prepare a feast of pleasures. Or at the very least, add humor.

A revered Hollywood axiom warns: "Movies are about their last twenty minutes." In other words, for a film to have a chance in the world, the last act and its climax must be the most satisfying experience of all. For no matter what the first ninety minutes have achieved, if the final movement fails, the film will die over its opening weekend.

As you create your story, you create your proof; idea and structure intertwine in a rhetorical relationship