Narrative Effectiveness Quotes

Being true to yourself involves showing and sharing emotion. The spirit that motivates most great storytellers is 'I want you to feel what I feel,' and the effective narrative is designed to make this happen. That's how the information is bound to the experience and rendered unforgettable.

I don't believe that narrative works when it's trying to teach a lesson or speak a factual truth.

Lots of movies don't kind of work as well as they do on the page.

You can tell how good a filmmaker is if you can turn the sound down but you can still feel the story.

I've seen music and songs used in stories, and while sometimes it works really well, often it doesn't.

There's a difference between telling a story and not providing an explanation because you just don't do it well or pull it off.

Stories in themselves are not automatically good; it has to be the right kind of story told by the right kind of person.

Even if it happened in real life - and oftentimes, especially if it happened in real life - it might not work in fiction.

I think it's very easy to disgust the reader with violence on the page - that's incredibly easy - but it's far harder to make a reader care about a character.

It's too bad for us 'literary' enthusiasts, but it's the truth nevertheless - pictures tell any story more effectively than words.

It isn't enough for a book to be transporting or entertaining; it must also come from a place of knowledge and an understanding of aesthetics. Even where a longlisted book wears its craftsmanship lightly, the power of the writing shines through.

Where I have come unstuck sometimes has mostly been to do with the stories not being quite right or not connecting with a contemporary audience.

Nothing is as important as a likable narrator. Nothing holds a story together better.

I believe in anything that will engage the audience and make the story more effective.

I will say there is only one caveat as far as 'Logan' goes: I got to the end and went, 'OK, what happens next?' To me, as an audience member, damn. If you can get to the end of the third act of a trilogy and your reaction is 'what the hell happens next,' someone did their job incredibly.

A shot is only as every as good as how well it tells the story.

There are many occasions in literature in which telling is far more effective than showing.

More often than not, I'm worried about, where shouldn't we have music? Because the tendency is just to put everything everywhere all the time in a lot of movies. You end up just numbing the audience when you do that and it's not the best way to tell a story.

The success of a science fiction writer is if he can write a good read.

A story is much more effective than a statistic.