Quotes About Storytelling

When I mention that I'm a game designer as well as a writer, someone will nod and say, 'Ah, that's what we like about your script. The videogame feel.'

I wanted to work with Sriram Raghavan, the master of noir.

The idea of a flip book still really appeals to me. That idea of fiction and non-fiction.

I get so many scripts a day but none of them inspires me. If I get a good inspiring script, then I will be most happy to make it into a film.

There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there's only narrative.

I write both fiction and nonfiction. I begin my fiction with the main character. The story comes later.

The thing I always tell my writing students - I'm not a full-time instructor, by any means, but periodically I've taught writing students - what I always tell them is that the most important thing in narrative nonfiction is that you not only have to have all the research; you have to have about 100% more than you need.

My job, in general, is nonfiction, so writing fiction was liberating. If you can't find the answer to something, you just make it up!

Normally, you spend the play convincing people of the world and the characters.

I never take ideas from the headlines. I feel that if a story is good enough, a real story that is, then it's already been covered by the media, and if it's not good enough, why would I want to bother with it?

I'm not interested in writing overtly autobiographical songs. I would rather explore interesting stories. I like the idea of the songs being evocative and distinctive, so I have in my mind the atmosphere that a film could evoke. I like to think of them existing in their own little world.

I'm not interested in breaking news. I'm interested in telling the story of what's going on and then trying to figure it out.

I don't want to make 'Chandni Bar 2.' I didn't think 'Fashion 2' will happen. If a film ends on a high note... makes the audience think and lingers in the end... that is needed.

We're used to a story in modern terms as an information delivery device. Certainly on television and even with the studio films, there's really only one note that you get, and that's clarity. And people will sacrifice everything for clarity. They'll sacrifice the joke. They'll sacrifice the moment, or the romance.

I was the kind of kid who couldn't really stop making up stories during class. I didn't do very well academically because I was always drawing these little doodles in the margins of my notebooks and I wasn't bringing home the best grades.

The key to performing a song isn't always about hitting the right notes, but about telling a story.

When I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, the drama teacher at my deaf school noticed that I liked to tell stories and had really good expression. I could entertain people with my stories.

I haven't worked on a lot of different shows, but from just watching different shows I've noticed that there isn't necessarily on every show that love of crafting an episode that has the three part act structure that comes around and actually tells a complete story.

I believe in mythology. I guess I share Joseph Campbell's notion that a culture or society without mythology would die, and we're close to that.

I remember a conversation with my parents about who the people on the TV were, and learning they were actors and they acted out this story and just thinking that was the most fantastic notion, and that's what I want to do.

The Notorious B.I.G.'s album 'Ready to Die' is an incredible chart of a man's life - it begins with his birth, you hear his mother giving birth, and it goes through the decades.

Once I was chased by the king of all scorpions. I have the most notorious animal stories.

If the story-teller is to nourish the roots of his culture, society must set him free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.

Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it.