Good writing is remembering detail. Most people want to forget. Don't forget things that were painful or embarrassing or silly. Turn them into a story that tells the truth.
What you never want to do is have a story that doesn't track emotionally, because then you're going joke to joke and you're going to fatigue the audience. The only thing that's going to string them to the next joke is how successful the previous joke...
Yeah, you know, I like to throw myself on the sword so that others may feel better about themselves. I tell the stories that you all want to forget, but when you remember it, it hopefully makes you laugh.
Why the hell can't people just write nice happy stories about people having happy sex? That's what I want, and I bet a whole bunch of other people want it too.
The one thing that's closest to my story is the thing about trying out for the juvenile delinquent role and getting it. That was the start of my acting career... which I've resumed, by the way.
What I've learned is that the most troublesome people don't tell you 100% of the story, and keep some facts to themselves. They just don't give you the full picture, and that's very worrisome to me.
In a story, you must always listen for the voice you cannot hear, the one that has been ignored or silenced. In that crushed voice, there is a strain of truth, as a crushed grape yields a drop of wine.
You hear a lot of horror stories about proposing and things going horribly wrong - it went really, really well and I was really pleased when she said yes.
Yet as I read the birth stories about Jesus I cannot help but conclude that though the world may be tilted toward the rich and powerful, God is tilted toward the underdog.
Whether you're talking about MSNBC or Fox or CNN, it's all about getting enough interest out there, sensationalizing the story in such a way that people are compelled to tune in.
My stories run up and bite me on the leg - I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.
I'm interested in painting the most beautifully compelling pictures and images and metaphors and stories and explanations possible that will put Jesus in language for a world that desperately needs to hear it.
Our culture places a very high value on storytelling, and the more that Catholic writers are able to master that craft, the more they can speak to the culture, the more powerful their stories will be.
I have a worm's eye view and a bird's eye view simultaneously and it's immensely helpful to understand what is happening on the shop floor when you are harnessing many talents and telling an intimate story on a large scale.
One likes to think one grows as a writer as one ages, else all you get is an 'old' young writer. Beyond that is the changing landscape of the universe and the stories I choose to tell.
And were an epitaph to be my story I'd have a short one ready for my own. I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover's quarrel with the world.
Is there magic in this world? Certainly! But it is not the kind of magic written about in fantasy stories. It is the kind of magic that comes from ideas and the hard work it often takes to make them real.
Be true to the writer within you; tell the story you're dying to tell in exactly the way you wish to tell it, and don't trust anyone who tries to sway you otherwise.
The greatest story of all is Colonel Sanders. He didn't start until he was sixty-six on a freeway bypass for his chicken shop. Anything is possible!
When you're writing personal stories, you have to be totally uncompromising - to the extent that you can be - about yourself. I know that if I am uber-uncompromising with myself, that gives me some latitude to write about others.
I must be honest. I can only read so many paragraphs of a New York Times story before I puke.
