Quotes About Storytelling

That's okay, I said. We're writers. We make things up.

That was when Angel Wells became a fiction writer, whether he knew it or not. That's when he learned how to make the make-believe matter to him more than real life mattered to him; that's when he learned how to paint a picture that was not real and never would be real, but in order to be believed at all- even on a sunny Indian summer day- it had to be better made and seem more real than real; it had to sound at least possible.

A novel is always more complicated than it seems at the beginning. Indeed a novel should be more complicated than it seems at the beginning.

When, if only for a moment, the novelist steps out of the creator's role, what roles are there for the novelist to step into? There are only creators of stories and characters in stories; there are no other roles. Ruth had never felt such anticipation before. She felt she had absolutely no will to take control of what happened next; in fact, she was exhilarated not to be in charge. She was happy not to be the novelist. She was not the writer of this story, yet the story thrilled her.

Garp was a natural storyteller; he could make things up, one right after the other, and they seemed to fit. But what did they mean?

I just don't dare to make up everything, like you do." I don't make up everything, but when I use things that actually happened, I always change something; I try to make what happens not exactly true.

Nana never remembered where you stopped reading, and wherever you started Moby-Dick, Mildred Brewster knew exactly where she was in the story. What my grandmother didn't know was where she was in her own story.

Escribió que la peor razón para que algo ocurriera en una novela era que hubiera ocurrido realmente. "¡Todo ha ocurrido realmente, alguna vez!", rabiaba. "La única razón para que algo ocurra es que es perfecto que ocurra en ese momento". -Dime cualquier cosa que te haya ocurrido a ti- dijo en cierta ocasión a una entrevistadora- y yo lo mejoraré. Puedo mostrar los detalles mejor que como ocurrieron.

There's a reason we're fiction writers, you know—real life sucks; make-believe is our business," I try to tell her.

You can see why we children asked so many questions. It is a vague story, the kind parents prefer to tell.

Imagining the stories you want to write, and waiting to write them, is part of the writing process—like thinking about the characters you want to create, but not creating them.

foreshadowing is the storytelling companion of fate.

Autobiography just isn't good or bad enough to work as fiction… Unrevised, real life is just a mess.

His exposure to storytelling, through Charles Dickens and Charlotte Bronte, had ill prepared him for characters who came from and traveled nowhere -- or for stories that made no sense.

That was when Angel Wells became a fiction writer, whether he knew it or not. That's when he learned how to make the make-believe matter to him more than real life mattered to him; that's when he learned how to paint a picture that was not real and never would be real, but in order to be believed at all—even on a sunny Indian summer day—it had to be better made and seem more real than real; it had to sound at least possible.

It's not like writing a novel. It's easy to know the future when I'm making up the story.

Robertson Davies

While Christopher Pike loved old Westerns, he'd also sampled stories set in other times. He'd noticed something: even as technological progress improved the lives of fictional characters, it had made the jobs of the storytellers who created them more difficult.

The lead—like the title—should be a flashlight that shines down into the story. A lead is a promise. It promises that the piece of writing is going to be like this. If it is not going to be so, don't use the lead.

My education was an education by movies.

Storytelling is the oldest form of education.

When you want to move somebody, you have to say to yourself: 'I'm in the emotional transportation business. I gotta move them, emotionally.

My favorite sci-fi always uses its hook to amplify some bigger theme or idea - some emotional thrust.

Personal stories are the emotional glue that connects your audience to your message.