Jeffrey Pierce Quotes

When I do a horror or a fantasy film it all boils down to something in the script that surprises me. It could be a big thing or a small moment. If it's there I'll do it.

A lot of the time in animation is spent getting the story right - that's something you can't rush.

I think on 'ER,' my other long-running show, I had some ideas about what's going on. 'Stargate Universe,' they were kind of secretive too a little bit about what they wanted to do, but I kind of liked working this way. I like the surprises, and I like knowing just enough to work on the character.

Matthew Wiener on 'Mad Men' writes the entire series before they start shooting, and if you have that, then what you can do with character and story is not at all unlike what you can do in a novel.

Even though 'Glee' is sometimes a hard road, I am very excited about writing a multi-year arc.

The video game story-development process is incredibly broken.

I like people to be surprised by the turn of events. I don't want things just to be pat and formulaic. If there's some sort of internal combustion in the character or a desire to change the way things are going, that makes for conflict, which is the essence of drama.

One of the greatest things about 'Continuum' is how great the writing is; our writing room is one of the most talented ones I've ever had. It really helps me as far as character development because they paint a very descriptive picture of who the characters are while still letting us have freedom to put in our own ideas.

It's a whole other way of working when you work in films: You know exactly the arc of your character.

I remember my dad working with me on breaking down my script and writing out a back story for my character and all that stuff.

We start with strong characters and build the movie from there. That not to say we don't struggle with story - that's the most challenging part.

I never have particular actors planned when I'm in the process of writing.

The thing about a cartoon is, you can do whatever you want. The tightrope that we are walking on 'The Simpsons' and 'Futurama' is 'How do you continue to surprise the audience, but make them good surprises?' Not every surprise is good, but you want to continue jolting people.

I never write with an actor in mind - never.

I write fast. But it takes me a while to get going. It's very important for me to see my whole plot. I have to see the end first because I like a surprise in the end. Which is why I let characters and plot gestate in my mind.

To try to create a character without a whole lot of information can be taxing. At the same time, it's fun to just stay on your toes and let the next bit of dialogue come in, and turn the page as you read the next script and see what they have in store for you next.

For me, when working on a film or play or television show, everything for me starts with the screenplay and I am devoted to that and that is what I work from. Any research I do or any preparation I do on my own is all ultimately in service of that.

Well, I must tell you I write the scripts very close to the bone. So I'm writing episode seven now and couldn't tell you what happens in episode eight.

When I started 'Still Missing,' I had a few key plot points in mind, which I played around with mentally for a couple of months, then one day I just started writing. Not having an outline led to some cool plot twists, but also many rewrites! A lot of the plotting happened on subsequent drafts.

One of the reasons I started working at 'South Park,' actually, was that I wanted to learn how to structure things and how to tell a story.

It can certainly happen that characters in more sophisticated stories can 'take over' as they develop and change the author's original ideas. Well, it certainly happens to me at times.

One reason I find all this character growth and narrative swerving so exhilarating is because I never got to do it when I wrote for TV. Our characters needed to remain consistent from week to week.

I start with a character and a situation, but I don't know what's going to happen until I write it. Sometimes things happen that surprise me.

My stories are pretty simplistic, but the characters are always complex and always right, and that comes from the script and my research and reverse-engineering what I find in the real world.

By the time I wrote 'Any Given Sunday' or 'Bats,' I sort of knew what my job was in terms of what a writer of dialogue does.