Story Twist Quotes

I admit," I said, "that a second murder in a book often cheers things up." - Hastings

When I sit down to write a scene, I have a plan in mind, and I'm thrilled when a character disregards my goals and takes the story to a place I hadn't imagined.

You always have to be ahead of the audience so that they have to always catch up and know the movie's not quite going exactly where you think it's going, or expecting it to be going.

All right, you're a reindeer. Here's your motivation: Your name is Rudolph, you're a freak with a red nose, and no one likes you. Then, one day, Santa picks you and you save Christmas. No, forget that part. We'll improvise. just keep it kind of loosey-goosey. You HATE Christmas! You're gonna steal it. Saving Christmas is a lousy ending, way too commercial. ACTION!

You set up a story and it turns inside out and that is, for me, the most exciting sort of story to write. The viewer thinks it's going to be about something and it does the opposite.

The only aspect I'd probably change in some of my films is the death of the heroine. I wish I'd kept some of them alive.

In our show, there's usually a comeuppance. Or, if not, it's an anti-ending. And you're supposed to get that.

And then as always, I saw the prayer coming at me. And, as always, Number 1 killed me! Set me on fire, cooked me to medium rare and then ate me! I really, really, really hope I haven't just given away the ending of this story.

Harrison is very much part of this one, but really it’s about finding him; he comes in in the third act.

As many authors have said, if the writer is not surprised by events, then chances are that the reader will not be either, and grow bored.

KGBeast starts chasing our heroes in a big way, and you get the return of an old character from the mythology that I think people will be really excited to see.

I wanted to write a story that was different than what I've done before - so I decided to write dual love stories that will keep the reader wondering how the stories will come together by the end.

Archetypes are always [in my film-making]. It's sometimes interesting to just flip them a little bit and see the underside.

The trick is the paradox - turning your story inside out. Now if it is something that appears to be of total normality and then suddenly turns inside out and is a different thing all together then that's fun to write.

The surprise with which a detective novel concludes should set up tragic vibrations which run backward through the entire structure.

There's a moment in every book when the book turns and it surprises me.

One of the greatest things about playing a villain is people wondering when he's going to make his comeback.

There was so much talk about the movie and we thought, "Wouldn't it be great to still do the movie, but to give everybody this thing they didn't see coming?" Even with the number of episodes, it was reported that there was going to be 10 episodes, and then there was talk about adding more.

It may interest you to know that my breakup with Terry and this mystery did not happen concurrently in real life. That is a writer's device, which places Gabriel under even greater pressure when the mystery begins to reveal itself.

There have been times I thought that when I got a certain point in the story, a certain character was going to do a certain thing, only to get to that point and have the character make clear that he or she doesn't want to do that at all. That long phone conversation I thought the character was going to have? He hangs up the phone before the other person answers, and twenty pages of dialog I had half written in my head go out the window.