“Always tell us where we are. And don't just tell us where something is, make it pay off. Use description of landscape to help you establish the emotional tone of the scene. Keep notes of how other authors establish mood and foreshadow events by describing the world around the character. Look at the openings of Fitzgerald stories, and Graham Greene, they're great at this.” WorldLooksCharacterHelpingStoriesUsePayEventsEmotionalSceneNotesMoodOpeningLandscapeToneDescriptionDescribing Author:Janet Fitch
“I don't make movies about issues. This is my same litmus test for all the movies I love: Is it a great character on a great emotional quest with a great emotional need? Do they overcome great emotional obstacles? Is it a fantastic story? I didn't set out to be a political activist. I'm just a human being who's moved by certain things, and if certain things break my heart, I set out to fix them.” IfsNeedsHumansHeartCharacterStoriesPoliticalCertainHuman BeingsLove IsBreakIssuesEmotionalMy HeartTestsOvercomingMovedObstaclesFantasticActivistQuestsGreat CharacterBreaking My HeartEmotional Needs Author:Kimberly Peirce
“I'll find something in what I read that snags my imagination in emotional terms; it resonates with me for reasons more complicated than just that it seems like it would make a good story.” ReasonStoriesSeemsTermImaginationEmotionalComplicatedMy ImaginationGood Story Author:Jim Shepard
“I do all the things that singer-songwriters do. I introduce the songs, I have a story to tell about everything all the time - I cannot be on stage and have something on my mind without telling the audience. I'm super emotional and expressive and vulnerable in that moment.” MindMomentsStoriesSongAudienceStageEmotionalSingersVulnerableThat MomentIntroducingSongwritersSinger SongwritersExpressive Author:India.Arie
“Today the challenge is not visuals, but to be able to tell a riveting emotional story, something that can reach deep down inside the audience's heart and twist it like a toy to make them laugh, cry or jump out of their seats to root for the hero.” HeartStoriesTodayAbleChallengesAudienceLaughingCryEmotionalHeroRootsVisualsSeatsToysTwistsDeep Down Author:Gabriel Campisi
“Music is, by far, the best art. Nothing even comes close. It's so immediate and emotional. In writing, maybe ninety percent of it is the unconscious and ten percent is control. In music, I think it's probably more like ninety-nine percent the unconscious. It's just a beautiful thing happening through you. And so, too, is writing a great story.” ThinkingWritingArtStoriesBeautifulEmotionalTenMusic IsHappeningsPercentThings HappenNineUnconsciousBeautiful ThingsNinetyNinety NineBest Art Author:T.C. Boyle
“I can be really silly when I'm not actually writing silliness, and I have to rein that in. Pynchon, in my opinion, sometimes tells elaborate shaggy dog stories just to work up to a pun or punch line. My challenge is to use humor and wordplay to reinforce the emotional core of the novel.” WritingI CanSometimesStoriesUseChallengesLinesOpinionNovelDogEmotionalCoreSillyReinsPunWordplaySilliness Author:Mary Kay Zuravleff
“A good mixtape didn't just gather together a bunch of love songs, but instead created an emotional narrative specific to your affection. The stories in most of my favorite collections are collected more like songs on a mixtape than, say, collected like spare change. By which I mean they are in conversation with each other and work to become larger than their parts.” MeanStoriesTogetherSongEmotionalConversationMy FavoriteAffectionBunchNarrativeCollectionsSparesMixtapesSpare Change Author:Anthony Marra
“We all know to feel sympathy for those who've suffered from drug addiction, child abuse, and terminal illness, so the set up elicits an emotional response that the story itself very well may not earn. Energy generated by the fiction itself is likely to produce more light.” KnowsFeelsWellsMayChildrenStoriesLightEnergyFictionProduceEmotionalDrugAbuseResponseAddictionIllnessChild AbuseDrug AddictionDrug AddictTerminalEmotional ResponseTerminal Illness Author:Anthony Marra
“I've been told by people who write historical novels that you just sort of write the emotional truth first, the story at the core, and then you go back and research it at the end.” PeopleWritingFirstsEndsStoriesNovelEmotionalResearchHistoricalCoreHistorical Novels Author:Jami Attenberg
“Trying to tell an authentic, raw and honest story without making it therapy. Separating myself enough to have perspective while putting myself in the emotional hot seat so that I could make this thing real. Asking for help. Delegating responsibility. Standing up for myself. Fighting the impulse to be sweet and likeable 24/7. Being open to all ideas, but staying true to the spine of the story. Knowing when to let go and when to hold on and fight like hell. Getting out of my own way. Shall I go on?” WayTryingIdeasRealEnoughHelpingStoriesFightingMy OwnResponsibilityHellKnowingHonestEmotionalSweetPerspectiveGoes OnLetting GoStandingHotAskingImpulseTherapySeatsStayingSpineStay TrueSeparatingLikeableAsking For Help Author:Jessie Kahnweiler
“Simply put, you can read a story in a single sitting and hold it all in your mind. You can experience all of its rhythms, beginning to end, during that span. Consequently it has, I think, greater emotional power than a novel because of this real-time effect. Stories can stun you.” ThinkingMindRealEndsStoriesNovelGreaterEffectsEmotionalSittingRhythmEmotional Power Author:Adam Ross
“If you're trying to convey a crucial emotional truth, you have to be in total control of the emotional pacing of the story, and if you can only strike one note in terms of tone then you're going to be quite limited as a writer.” IfsTryingStoriesTermEmotionalNotesStrikesToneCrucialPacing Author:Kevin Keck
“In fact, I always assumed that most everything I read was true, to one degree or another. I couldn't articulate this fact until after I read Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried and he discussed Happening Truth, Story Truth, and Emotional Truth. I always understood that the facts of The Sun Also Rises or On the Road were the facts as dictated by a certain narrative structure, but because the experiences of those characters echoed my own feelings about the world. I knew there was a Happening Truth behind them.” WorldCharacterFactsStoriesFeelingsCertainMy OwnBehindsSunEmotionalTruth IsDegreesHappeningsUnderstoodStructureNarrativeSun Also RisesNarrative StructureTim O Brien Author:Kevin Keck
“We are inducting Connor "The Crusher" Michalek into the WWE Hall of Fame with the Warrior Award, and it's going to be really hard with the waves of emotion that will set in. I will have to share with everyone what he meant to me and also deal with how sad his story is. He was so inspiring to people, it is going to be really emotional for me. It should be very special!” PeopleShouldHardStoriesDealsEmotionShareSpecialEmotionalFameWaveWarriorHallsAwardsWweHall Of Fame Author:Daniel Bryan
“I like violence because I like looking at it and I like understanding emotional and physical violence and how they work with one another... It's operating in all these levels of hopefully - Oedipus is one of my favorite stories, that's like falling down a well when you read that - so that would be the hope, that each thing causes the next.” WellsStoriesWould BeFallNextCausesUnderstandingLevelsViolenceEmotionalMy FavoriteHopefullyFalling DownOedipusPhysical Violence Author:Kimberly Peirce
“It's not like I'm narrating stories with music behind them. It's all kind of one thing. You hope you can provoke a specific emotional reaction, but in ways that aren't quite plain.” WayKindStoriesBehindsOne ThingEmotionalMusic IsReactionsAll KindsProvokingEmotional Reactions Author:Jonathan Meiburg
“I get very emotional about time periods I never lived in, but I have a weird connection to them. The mystery of it becomes about hearing the stories of those eras, and creating nostalgia from those stories.” StoriesMysteryEmotionalPeriodsCreatingConnectionsHearingNostalgiaErasTime Periods Author:Elle Fanning
“I'm insane, I'm emotional, but I'd rather be that than a robot. So that's definitely something that I wanted to get out there. Especially with Cry Baby's story, because the album is about Cry Baby but I realized that me and her went through the same change.” StoriesWantedCryEmotionalBabyAlbumsI RealizedInsaneRobotsCry Baby Author:Melanie Martinez
“Characters exist in a flat line until we challenge them - sometimes they challenge themselves, sometimes they're challenged by other people, by nature, by robots, or by fungal infections in and around one's nether-country. Stories need conflict across the physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual spectra. Accidents, betrayals, cataclysm, desperation, excess - these are the letters in the alphabet of conflict.” PeopleNeedsWritingCountrySometimesCharacterStoriesSpiritualChallengesLinesEmotionalConflictIntellectualLettersBetrayalAccidentsFlatsExcessDesperationRobotsAlphabetInfection Author:Chuck Wendig
“It's often hard to determine, especially in early drafts, whether or not a story has a bona fide complication. Remember this: A complication must either illuminate, thwart, or alter what the character wants. A good complication puts emotional pressure on a character, promoting that character not only to act, but to act with purpose.If the circumstance does none of these things, then it's not a complication at all - it's a situation. This situation, or setup, might be interesting or even astonishing, but it gives the story no point of departure.” IfsWantGivingWritingDoeHardCharacterStoriesMightRememberPurposeInterestingSituationEmotionalCircumstancesPressureDeterminePromotingAstonishingNo PointDepartureComplicationSetups Author:Monica Wood
“I've had to try and find a way over the years of writing narratively that doesn't really require you to sit down and work out what the story's about. You're brought into a sort of sequence of images that have that emotional resonance, but it's kind of irrelevant what the actual story is. It's taken me maybe 13 albums or something to work that out.” WayWritingTryingYearsKindStoriesTakenEmotionalDown AndAlbumsWork OutIrrelevantSequenceResonance Author:Nick Cave
“What does seem to be a constant is that I write more emotional stories the older I get. I think a lot of that has to do with growing up in a patriarchal structure where unemotional intellect (male) is taken more seriously than delving into emotions (female), and gradually freeing myself from those expectations.” ThinkingWritingDoeStoriesSeemsEmotionGrowing UpTakenGrowingEmotionalExpectationsFemaleStructureConstantMalesIntellectDelvingUnemotional Author:Karin Tidbeck
“We've always liked music in movies, you know, just 'cause it helps tell the story. It can be emotional. It can be funny. It can be so many different things. And it just and it gives you variety from and again, there's a certain stylization that happens with music. Animation and music seem to go together well.” KnowsGivingWellsDifferentHelpingStoriesSeemsHappensTogetherCertainCausesEmotionalVarietyDifferent ThingsAnimation Author:John Musker
“I began to see, again and again, stories that were first confusing and second where the emotional impact was muted because the big scene came before the explanation of what was going on. There was a reverse chronological order as well as a concealment of what exactly was going on. I think often that comes out of the fear of being boring, and sometimes I think it's just an attempt to seem clever.” ThinkingFirstsWellsSometimesStoriesBigsSeemsOrderEmotionalSceneImpactBoringCleverExplanationAgain And AgainReverseConfusingConcealment Author:Alice Mattison
“The old story is true:Women have to be less emotional than men.” MenStoriesEmotionalTrue Woman Author:Siri Hustvedt
“If you're going to make an emotional connection with somebody, whether it's in the story or in the world, there's a certain amount of self-acceptance that is required.” IfsWorldSelfStoriesCertainAcceptanceEmotionalAmountConnectionsSelf AcceptanceEmotional Connection Author:George Saunders
“My music is very raw, it's emotional, and it's honest. I do my best to tell a story whenever I write music because I want to paint the most vivid picture that tells a story whether a person is falling in love for the first time or going through a painful heartbreak.” WantWritingFirstsPersonsStoriesFallHonestEmotionalMusic IsFirst TimePaintFalling In LovePainfulVivid Author:Adrian Marcel
“My "mission", if you can call it that, is to connect with my readers on an emotional level and have them come away with a stronger impression of the basic message in the story I am illustrating.” IfsStoriesLevelsEmotionalReaderMessagesStrongerMissionsImpressionIllustrating Author:Floyd Cooper
“The last thing I want is that sense of artifice - rather I want the reader drawn into the story and lost in it and vested in it. So the emotional connection is everything, albeit a connection on my terms.” WantStoriesLastsLostTermEmotionalReaderConnectionsArtificeEmotional Connection Author:Steve Erickson
“I try to tell a story when I'm playing. I try to make an emotional connection when I'm playing versus before I played just to play. Now there's a sense of purpose of why I play, of how I play. So people can actually feel what I'm saying to them.” PeopleFeelsTryingPlayStoriesPurposeEmotionalConnectionsVersusEmotional Connection Author:Kerry James Marshall
“I love sharing my stories and experiences with people and connecting to them on both a humorous and emotional level.” PeopleStoriesLevelsEmotionalHumorousConnecting Author:Tori Spelling
“I'm entirely interested in people, and also other creatures and beings, but especially in people, and I tend to read them by emotional field more than anything. So I have a special interest in what they're thinking and who they are and who's hiding behind those eyes and how did he get there, and what's the story, really?” PeopleThinkingStoriesEyeInterestBehindsSpecialFieldsEmotionalCreaturesHidingSpecial Interests Author:Alice Walker
“I love telling stories. I love the intimacy between the writer and reader. When you write sketches it's over in two minutes. When you write a book the characters have to have a bit of emotional depth.” WritingTwoBookCharacterStoriesBitsMinutesEmotionalReaderDepthIntimacyTelling Stories Author:David Walliams
“The computer can't tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact mathematical design, but what's missing is the eyebrows.” GivingStoriesMissingDesignEmotionalInternetComputerMathematicalFree SpeechEyebrowsMissing You Author:Frank Zappa