Ryan Eggold Quotes

My first duty to write a gripping yarn. Second is to convey credible characters who make you feel what they feel. Only third comes the idea.

All fiction has to have a certain amount of truth in it to be powerful.

People want good stories.

I think that screenwriting probably isn't seen as writing in the same way that novel-writing is seen as writing. But I certainly don't see it that way.

I never set out to write a script that is 'topical.'

Of course, I'm not allowed to talk about the script, but I can say it is a really good story.

I never set out to write literature; I set out to tell stories. And some of my work may be very raunchy and very bloodthirsty - but life, for me, is a violent thing.

I always think plot is what you fall back on if you can't write, to keep things going.

Our task as fiction writers isn't just to report something that didn't really happen. We have to give what we write a sense of reality. The tool of our tradition is language.

I love sci-fi, especially when it thrives on a thought-provoking story, rather than explosions.

There's a lot for screenwriters to steal from songwriters, in terms of getting to the point.

Movies are all about plot. Theater, even if it's story heavy, it's about ideas. Theater has to resonate in your heart in a way that movies don't.

I don't think I could write a straight drama.

In a good play every speech should be as fully flavored as a nut or apple.

Writing a great script - not just a good one, but a great one - is almost an impossible task.

My only close-to-game-plan is to follow good writing. If the writing is in TV or if it's in theater or in film, that's it. It doesn't really matter what the medium is.

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

It's bad writing, however naturalistic it's written, that's where you have to do your best acting.

I'm not a theoretician about playwriting, but I have a strong sense that plays have to be pitched - the scene, the line, the word - at the exact point where the audience has just the right amount of information. It's like Occam's razor.

I just try to write entertaining books that are easily identifiable.

I'm a fan of great storytelling.

Good storytelling appeals to me - good writing.

With prose you can incorporate more details, develop scenes, sustain the tension in a special way. Prose has its own speed.

Storytelling is storytelling. Good stories need compelling characters and interesting conflicts. That's the bottom line no matter what medium you're writing for.

I never thought I could write fiction.