Quotes About Storytelling

People need to start to think about the messages that they send in the movies.

I sort of always like to write starting with when I learned how.

It's rare that I actually have a story in my head. I have events or 'what's the next move?' Like, Maggie, 'where's she going to go in this story, where's she going to end up?' Then the story has to fill in the in-between, and that comes as I'm starting it.

My music is just about story telling. I don't have much to say, and I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. I'm just singing through conviction about what I love and what I care about, starting with the very small.

I'm working on a few different films and I'm just searching for the right new story to tell. As a director, you just have to kind of like just get through the first project before starting on the next one.

As a filmmaker, I'm very collaborative. I don't pretend to know everything that is needed to make a movie. What I like to do is get together with a group of people, starting with developing the story and bounce around ideas.

Possibly because I did start off as a journalist, my starting point has always been that you've got to keep an audience with you. Whatever you're doing, you always want a script to be a page-turner. It's very important never, ever, to feel above that.

So for me the approach has become to go into a story not really sure of what I want to say, try to find some little seed crystal of interest, a sentence or an image or an idea, and as much as possible divest myself of any deep ideas about it. And then by this process of revision, mysteriously it starts to accrete meanings as you go.

If somebody from the past doesn't rise up from the grave and start talking to me, I haven't got a book. I have to hear that voice, the voice of the narrator. How she sounds will tell me who she is, and who she is will tell me how she will act - and that starts the plot in motion.

The main thing that I learned from editing is that most people, when they're making a film, they start too early into the story. They will try to set up the characters, they will try to establish things before the plot actually starts.

I don't like plots. I don't know what a plot means. I can't stand the idea of anything that starts in the beginning - you know, 'beginning, middle and end.'

All writing is the same: It's just making up lies until it starts to sound like the truth. That's what I do.

When one starts writing a book, especially a novel, even the humblest person in the world hopes to become Homer.

For film and theater, you know how the story starts; you know how the story ends. With TV, you don't. It's literally like living real life in character.

I don't think it's necessary to shout if you have a good story. But I also don't think you should shy away from being bold in the statement that you're making.

Some have said I focus on marginalized communities, but it's not like that was my mission statement. I've just told stories that interest me, and that I'm not seeing enough of, on groups of people and subcultures that are often not seen.

Sometimes people can get lost within the crowd, but we have to remember that ballroom dancing is an intimate sport where people look into your story and not the other way around. It's so important to just stay focused as a couple and that you don't let your adrenaline get the best of you by dancing too fast to the music or whatever.

I was very lucky to have a father who read to us when we were children. And he didn't just read books - he brought them alive. We couldn't wait for the next chapter. So my love of reading started early and has stayed with me all my life.

When TV came along some years back I purposely stayed away from drama.

Humans are fascinated with communication. I was always drawn to words and stories, staying in touch with your feelings and being open to what's around you.

Stories of all lengths and depths come from different parts of the cave. For a novel, you must lay in mental, physical and spiritual provision as for a siege or for a time of hectic explosions, while a short story is, or can be, a steady, timed flame like the lighting of a blow lamp on a building site full of dry tinder.

I don't want to steal anybody's story. I very much want to use the stories that I hear to get lost in my mind, to tell a larger story.

I think of the Jens Lekman in the songs as a completely different person who's stealing my stories.

If you aren't having fun, if you aren't anxious to find out what happens next as you write, then not only will you run out of steam on the story, but you won't be able to entertain anyone else, either.