Dave Morris Quotes

To combine telling an interesting story with brilliantly written characters is the most difficult thing to do.

I prefer to bring these to the service of story rather than to let them replace narrative.

There's something really satisfying if you've created a bunch of characters that have withstood 25 episodes.

I try to trace the connection between the characters and that way a story or plot emerges.

Although when I start a novel I know how it will begin and end, I like to let the people within the story take me on a journey between those points without having a fixed plan.

There's an arc to an action sequence, and you need to come out the other end knowing your character better, and maybe the story has moved forward in a compelling way.

What I have to outline is action and plot because I'm not particularly good at that.

I don't necessarily believe that stories need closure. I just believe they need a beginning, middle, and end, but the end doesn't have to prevent us from continuing to grapple with the story at hand. It ideally should demand that we remain engaged with the story.

I care about narrative structure; I care about how stories unfold.

My characters are not thinking about the act breaks. They're thinking about what they need to do to move forward. As long as I focus on that, the story starts to progress. As soon as I think, 'We're 20 pages in, something better blow up,' we're in trouble.

Anyone who's been reading my stuff can see that there's a lot of tracks being laid for future stories.

I love seeing a story evolve over several books and watching characters develop.

Plot and character are virtually the same thing.

I've been telling anybody who would listen that I wanted to do a series for the last 10 years. But I wouldn't do it if I was just another cop pushing bad guys up against the wall.

As a rule, anyone who can tell a good story can write one, so there really need be no mistake about his qualification; such a man will be careful not to be wearisome, and to keep his point, or his catastrophe, well in hand.

My character on 'The Good Wife' is a smaller character, and his story arcs are typically season-long, unless it's a big episode for him. His transitions take place over many, many hours.

All fiction is about people, unless it's about rabbits pretending to be people. It's all essentially characters in action, which means characters moving through time and changes taking place, and that's what we call 'the plot'.

My books are character-driven. They're not driven by the story.

To just tell a story from beginning, middle and end doesn't motivate me that much.

I love that there's a beginning, middle and end to a film and you can craft what the whole journey is going to look like.

Since I was there in the very beginning, I know the history of the characters. So, I make comments about the tone and sometimes remind the writers that we've done that before.

I went to a seminar early in my career on the craft of storytelling by Robert McKee. It was really life altering. There are basic principles on how to craft an engaging story and he covers them well. He's got a book out, 'Story,' that I would highly recommend to anyone interested in improve their storytelling.

I'm big on story structure. I studied with John Truby, who mapped out story by means of moral wants and needs, and that's what I do. Hey, so does John Irving.

I've enjoyed working on the TV series that I've worked on, in particular something like 'The Wire,' where there was so much time to tell the story and develop a character. I learned from that that it's best not to lay all your cards on the table straight away.

'The Wire' is similar to 'The Walking Dead' in so far as everybody pulling for everybody else to get to the turning point of the story.