Graham Linehan Quotes

I try to give all my characters a sense of humor, so I guess I feel like I have done comedy, but maybe I'm better known for drama.

I care more about making sure the story is correct and the characters are behaving in character than I do about the individual jokes.

You asked what is the secret of a really good sketch. And it is a sketch is a small play. It's got a beginning, and a middle and an end. It should have a plot; it should have the characters, conflict. It is a little play. And in it, will be funny stuff.

I'm good at coming up with wacky characters and funny dialogue.

Because I was a television writer for many years, I write very conversationally. I put things straight, and with a lot of humor.

I think the most important thing when you're telling a story is to just tell the story as best as you possibly can.

Whether I'm writing a novel about a guy mourning the death of his father or whether I'm writing a show about people killing each other, you want to hear characters speak and be funny and witty.

All the writing elements are the same. You need to tell a good story... You've got good characters... People think there's some dramatic difference between writing 'Little Bear' and the 'Hunger Games,' and as a writer, for me, there isn't.

I'm a novelist first, and I wrote a bunch of books, and everything I write, I just find people are more interesting when there's an element of humor to it.

I mean, I'm in the business of storytelling, not message making.

A page a day means I need to focus on a gag a day, and that's great for laughs but bad for plot, and I'm primarily a plot guy.

I like the story writing process. I usually use someone who has been trained for structure to take the story that I actually want, place those elements in the right places.

If I'm not clear with the character, I can't do anything with it. But once I get that character, the possibilities are endless. When you have such a defined character, I feel like I can actually read the phone book and make it funny.

I am a comic writer, which means I get to slay the dragons, and shoot the bull.

I think writers have become hypnotised by the number of jokes on the page at the expense of character.

Any time you get two people in a room who disagree about anything, the time of day, there is a scene to be written. That's what I look for.

Screenwriting is still a challenge for me. It's more technical than creative. You have to be a very good journeyman plumber and put the proper parts together. Then, if you can still inject a little bit of something worthwhile, you have done as much as can be expected.

It's a real challenge to complete a story arc and end up with a cool punchline in 120 characters.

And I think it's very rare to have good stories, well written comedies.

The mark of a writer is to make a story as likely as possible, and I've done my best to deliver authentic atmosphere.

You can't write just anything. Your story needs structure.

Everyone has a story to tell. All you have to do is write it. But it's not that easy.

A lot of the time, a comedy script is just dialogue, and that's the main thing you have to worry about.

We're constantly trying to find the best way to tell the stories that we want.

Writing a whole series was a crash course in screenwriting, which is a very different muscle to standup comedy writing.