Narrative richness Quotes

Detailing and backstories are so important; only they draw you into the life of a character.

If you're going to do a show about somebody who dumped you, it's much richer if you have three characters dealing with different aspects of that theme. There is more space for people to identify with it.

The world knows of a vast stock of epic material scattered up and down the nations; sometimes its artistic value is as extraordinary as its archaeological interest, but not always.

Like Flannery O'Connor, McCorkle's genius is to give us both philosophical speculation and a riveting narrative filled with unforgettable characters. Great writing, poignancy, humor, wisdom-all are in abundance here. Jill McCorkle is one of the South's greatest writers; she is also one of America's.

There's more substance in my prose and my poetry than in all my films together. Writing is a more direct way of expressing yourself because, in cinema, you always have finances, organization, actors, technical apparatus and all that stuff coming in between.

It starts with the writing. We have to think of all these characters - we have to treat them all equally. We have to think of them as having an interior life and having motivations. When I'm drawing female characters, I'm looking for that. I'm looking for subtext. I'm looking for ways to make the reader relate to them in a way that goes beyond the pure aesthetic value. You know, just drawing an attractive woman really gets kind of boring after a while.

Stories are the rich, unseen underlayer of the most ordinary moments.

I actually had publishers that would encourage me at times to keep it simpler, not pack in so much information, but I'm a fan of songs and movies and books that the second time you read them, you find more stuff that you missed, so I like to pay attention to that detail.

. . . you [film critics] always overstress the value of images. You judge films in the first place by their visual impact instead of looking for content. This is a great disservice to the cinema. It is like judging a novel only by the quality of its prose. I was guilty of the same sin when I first started writing for the cinema. . . . Now I feel that only the literary mind can help the movies out of that cul de sac into which they have been driven by mere technicians and artificers.

I love when I dive into lyrics that give me human complexity and intricate narrative.

MIke Lee writes with honesty, penetration, wit and the ability to surprise the reader with an unexpected turn from time to time that enriches the experience.

There are as many stories to be told as there are people to tell them about; only the mean-spirited would consider there to be a competition at all.

Television is fantastic because you get to follow a group of characters over time, and their stories can enrich and surprise you. And you get to work with a group of people over time as well, which can be very satisfying with the right group.

I'm always looking for complicated characters in fiction about whom I can feel a dozen feelings at once - in the space of a single paragraph, even.

The great thing about Pete and Peggy's storyline is that you barely have to do anything. There's so much there, so much history, that you can have them exchange a look and it's so loaded. So you honestly don't have to do anything.

Narrative is so rich; it's given up so much.

I think American films right now are suffering from an excess of scale. Lots of movies we're seeing now are more akin to video games than stories about human life and relationships. Twelve- to 20-year-olds are maybe the largest economic force in the US movie business. I'm not a very nostalgic person - but I enjoy a good story.

I'm always really impressed when a movie can function like a novel does - that's so hard to do.

The more layers a story has, the better it is for the audience.

Books are a little better movies than just screenplays because there's more fat on the bone. There's more character development. There's more stuff to pick from.