It's a funny thing about stories. It doesn't feel like you make them up, more like you find them. You type and type and you know you haven't got it yet, because somewhere out there, there's that perfect thing -- the unexpected ending that was always going to happen. That place you've always been heading for, but never expected to go.
Interpretation
Stories seem to be discovered rather than created, leading to surprising conclusions.
This quote highlights the idea that storytelling often feels like an act of discovery rather than creation. It suggests that every narrative has a destiny or perfect ending already in place, and as writers, we embark on a journey to uncover it, often leading to unexpected twists that resonate with deeper truths about life and creativity.
In practice
Using this quote in a writing workshop to inspire participants about the nature of storytelling.
Demons run when a good man goes to war. Night will fall and drown the sun when a good man goes to war. Friendship dies and true love lies. Night will fall and the dark will rise when a good man goes to war. Demons run but count the cost; the battle's won but the child is lost.
An awful lot of storytelling isn't really about making people understand - it's about making people care.
I don't want to think that the stories are finite; I want to feel that they can go on forever.
I'll be a story in your head. But that's OK. We're all stories, in the end. Just make it a good one, eh? Because it was, you know; it was the best.
The trouble with a series as it gets older is it can feel like a tradition, and tradition is the enemy of suspense, and it's the enemy of comedy. It's the enemy of everything, really. So you have to shake it up.
I know this is going to sound very self-serving, and I apologize for it, but if you can write comedy, you can pretty much write anything, because it's the hardest. It's the most technically demanding, the most precisely evaluated form of writing. People know if it works or not. There's a big button marked 'fail,' and that's when nobody laughs.
I love rock-n-roll. I think it's an exciting art form. It's revolutionary. Still revolutionary and it changed people. It changed their hearts. But yeah, even rock-n-roll has a lot of rubbish, really bad music.
So here I stand before you preaching organic architecture: declaring organic architecture to be the modern ideal.
I want to be able to follow the example of those extraordinary British actresses who move effortlessly from film to TV to theatre roles.
Art lives on constraint and dies of freedom.
I want to do what I can lend my talents to, but I want it to be as a human being and not as a two-dimensional character.
I never studied theatre; I learned it by doing it. If I had studied theatre, I would not be making the kind of theatre I am making.
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