There certainly does seem a possibility that the detective story will come to an end, simply because the public will have learnt all the tricks.
A good [short story] would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit.
A true writer should be able to write about any color. It's the story they tell that should affect people, not the race.
When I did A Soldier's Story, I was very young and green and thought I knew everything-now I know I know everything!
I would rather read a poorly structured story that has fresh ideas than a tightly structured one with cliches.
When you direct a movie, you're basically looking at a story, the way you want to look at it. You bring that director's vision, and I'm totally open for that.
I really wanted to write an adventure story, a murder-mystery that was set during the gold-rush years in New Zealand.
I don't have a story about an epiphany in which I suddenly realised I wanted to be an actor. It was much more a case of the idea dawning on me gradually.
Part of what I want to do is sort of reclaim my story - it belongs to me and to my children, who have to live with whoever their mother is.
The difficulty with film is you always have to consign a story to being a certain length, whereas with a book you don't have budget constraints; you can cast it yourself.
I believe that everyone has a story, and it is important that we encourage all students to tell theirs.
After you've written a story, the thing to do is sell it. Sounds simple, and it is, if one will follow certain basic principles of salesmanship.
I believe that the writer should tell a story. I believe in plot. I believe in creating characters and suspense.
Words become sentences, twisted, difficult/The story weaves itself, always noisiest at night/As herds of words won't stop. . . " Wildebeest of Words/Breathe In
My goal is not to have everlasting fame, it is simply to write the stories that are asking me to write them and to share them with the people that want to hear them.
I rarely return to characters. My characters, at least most of them, are much more a part of that superorganism that is the story than separate and independent creatures.
My stories are very compact. I want them to say the most complex things in the simplest way.
Writing a story is kind of like surfing, as opposed to the novel, where you use a GPS to get somewhere. With surfing, you kind of jump.
Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true except for the rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge.
We do not see things as they are, nor do we even see them as we are, but only as we believe our story to have been.
For me, nudity and strong language have never been huge loadbearing elements of how I like to tell a story. Graphic images certainly are.
