Story Resonance Quotes

When I finished reading '100 Years of Solitude,' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I got really sad. I thought, 'This will never happen for me, for the first time, ever again.' Then I opened 'Beauty Is a Wound.' It's a completely different story and writing style, but it has a similar place in my heart now.

I would like my novels to be read the way I read the novels I love.

It's hard to say how certain stories just punch us in the heart and the brain at the same time at the end. I suppose that's what we're all looking for. But each story has its own valence, its own way of saying goodbye to you.

The first thing, when I read the script, is that I need to care about what happens and feel compelled by the story and engaged by the characters. It needs to resonate with me, even if what the characters are going through is not something that I have experienced in my life. I have to feel like it has some sort of meaning to me.

When you're watching somebody read your material and they smile and nod, you know you've found that place where your experience and their experience match, even though they aren't the same exact experience.

It doesn't matter which genre you're working in, you try to find an honest relationship within that space, and say if it's the romance genre, within that you have to find a story and characters that resonate with an audience.

I feel like, in a lot of ways, 'Hidden Figures' is the book that I wrote and have been waiting to read since I learned to read.

With acting, you do want to get every job, and you're trying to get every audition, but then you reach a certain stage where you start to kind of gravitate toward the stories and the people that have a similar heartbeat.

If we as writers could predict what readers grab on to, we would write it.

A child's own story is a dream, but a good story is a dream that is true for more than one child.

When I read the script of 'Karu,' there was a spark within, and I instantly connected with the story. I was emotionally attached to the story. After we finished shooting, I was so attached to the kid who played my daughter, I wanted to adopt her. That's how strong my emotional attachment was with the role and the story.

I find that after a screening, people really want to come and tell you what they feel.

Sometimes I want to do something that's really funny and other times I read an indie script that is going to be made for nothing but I want to do it because I think that I can connect with something in the story.

As readers, we want not only a strong story, but also characters we can relate to, characters that feel real. We have to find something of ourselves in them. Each character, even those only there to serve the mechanics of the plot, should have a number of layers. The entire world you are stepping into as a reader must feel real. It must have resonance, you must be able to touch the light; smell the smells.

Some people make movies for money or glory and will take any subject people offer them. But I cannot do that. I need to feel the story and make it mine.

Stories you read when you're the right age never quite leave you. You may forget who wrote them or what the story was called. Sometimes you'll forget precisely what happened, but if a story touches you it will stay with you, haunting the places in your mind that you rarely ever visit.

That's the holy grail as a TV writer, to work on a story that you care about and to put it out there and for it to find the audience and connect with fans and connect with critics.

Imbuing fiction with a life that extends beyond the last word is in some ways the goal: the ending that goes beyond the ending in the reader's mind, so invested are they in the story.

I always hope that people feel less alone when they see a movie that I make. That some part of the story played out on the big screen will resonate for individuals in the audience in a way that gives them comfort.

I used to say, read as much as you can. Now I say, read the best that you can, the stories that resonate with you, the books that are important to you. Try to read, not only as a reader, but also as a writer, to deconstruct how the author is telling his or her story.

The themes and ideas embedded in 'Into the Woods' always spoke to me.

When people stop me to say they love 'Workin' Moms,' it's not just that the show makes them laugh or is a great escape - they tell me my, or another, character's story is their story.

The movie has to have some essence where you connect with it. The reason I'm doing 'Blade 2' and not 'Alien 4' is because I connect with the universe of 'Blade.' I don't connect with the universe of 'Alien.' Besides, I already did 'Alien 4': It's called 'Mimic.'

When people write to me with stories, they are never ones that work for me. There's something mysterious about which ones catch you.

If there are 100 people, I don't anticipate all 100 liking my scenario - but I write it so at least one or two of them will love and get really into that particular story.