“The genius is not in how much Stanley Kubrick does in “2001: A Space Odyssey,'' but in how little. This is the work of an artist so sublimely confident that he doesn't include a single shot simply to keep our attention. He reduces each scene to its essence, and leaves it on screen long enough for us to contemplate it, to inhabit it in our imaginations. Alone among science-fiction movies, “2001'' is not concerned with thrilling us, but with inspiring our awe.” LittlesLongDoeEnoughArtistImaginationSpaceAttentionFictionGeniusSceneShotsConcernedEssenceScience FictionScreensAweContemplatingThrillingStanleyOdysseyScience Fiction MovieSpace Odyssey2001 A Space Odyssey Book:33 Movies to Restore Your Faith in Humanity: Ebert's Essentials Source: 33 Movies to Restore Your Faith in Humanity: Ebert's Essentials
“Fiction is a sort of inter-human magic, allowing you to travel into a scene and feel it tingle on your skin.” FeelsHumansFictionMagicSceneSkinsAllowing Author:Barbara Kingsolver
“There is no such thing as too ordinary to write about, whether that's life or a scene in a novel. What's interesting to people, whether it's memoir or fiction, is the truth.” PeopleWritingInterestingFictionNovelSceneOrdinaryMemoir Author:Augusten Burroughs
“Memoirs have dominated the literary scene now for ten or 20 or even 30 years: most of them seem to use the conventions of fiction and it's astonishing how in so many of these books people seem to be able to remember conversations that took place when they were five years old and give three pages of coherent dialogue, which is utterly impossible.” PeopleGivingYearsBookUseSeemsAbleRememberThreeFictionFiveImpossibleSceneTenConversationPagesMemoirDialogueFive YearsConventionsAstonishingFive Year Olds Author:Paul Auster
“A lot of times in my short fiction there isn't much dramatized scene - there are a lot of short, interconnected bits, snippets of conversation, continual action, and so on. I frequently rely pretty heavily on voice.” ActionBitsVoiceFictionSceneConversationRelyInterconnected Author:Dan Chaon
“When you're writing a book that is going to be a narrative with characters and events, you're walking very close to fiction, since you're using some of the methods of fiction writing. You're lying, but some of the details may well come from your general recollection rather than from the particular scene. In the end it comes down to the readers. If they believe you, you're OK. A memoirist is really like any other con man; if he's convincing, he's home. If he isn't, it doesn't really matter whether it happened, he hasn't succeeded in making it feel convincing.” IfsMenFeelsWritingBelieveWellsMayBookEndsMatterCharacterHomeLyingFictionHappenedEventsParticularReaderWalkingSceneMethodDetailsNarrativeConvincingWriting A BookRecollectionFiction Writing Author:Samuel Hynes
“And while dollars have little to do with it, the fiction writer should be asking the same question any capable film producer would ask: Is this scene truly necessary? It is the kind of thinking that, put into practice, results in a story with a sense of energy and direction.” ThinkingShouldKindLittlesStoriesFilmAsksEnergyResultsFictionPracticeSceneCapableAskingDollarsProducersFiction Writers Author:Les Standiford
“I don't really have those kinds of intentions when I write a scene. I try to follow the internal logic of the fiction, rather than make an argument or an assertion.” WritingTryingKindFictionSceneArgumentLogicIntentionInternalsAssertion Author:Rachel Kushner
“I'll never forget reading Chekhov's "A Doctor's Visit" on a train to Hawthorne, New York, and I got to the end - the scene where the patient says goodbye to the doctor and she puts a flower in her hair as a kind of thank you to him - and I felt like a cowboy shot from a canyon's top. This is a different experience from reading a novel, I think. The emotional effect is cumulative. Let's just hope market forces don't send short fiction the way of the dinosaur, because their sales are paltry compared to the novel and this is truly unfortunate.” ThinkingWayKindDifferentEndsReadingForceFeltForgetFictionNovelEffectsNew YorkEmotionalFlowerHairSceneShotsDoctorsTrainPatientGoodbyeNever ForgetUnfortunateCowboySaying GoodbyeDinosaursCanyonsCumulativeDifferent ExperiencesChekhovHawthorne Author:Adam Ross
“The biggest problem in the fictional treatment of sex is that it's not treated as part of the story but as a pause from the story. The best sex scenes in fiction are the ones that advance the story.” StoriesProblemSexFictionSceneTreatedTreatmentPauses Author:K. M. Soehnlein
“You can't hide behind the guise of fiction. No matter how autobiographical a fictional scene is, you can always tell the reader - in protecting yourself - that you made it up.” MadeMatterBehindsFictionReaderSceneMade ItGuise Author:Rob Roberge
“I like to read. I've become obsessed with fiction. And it's too bad: I'm a musician many people love and I myself am not part of the music scene.” PeopleFictionSceneMusicianObsessed Author:Glenn Branca
“I feel akin to [William] Shakespeare in the sense that, as I see it, he lived to dramatize the unfailingly exciting, unfathomably strange interplay among human beings that constitutes "scenes" in his plays, and constitutes "story" in prose fiction.” FeelsHumansPlayStoriesHuman BeingsFictionStrangeSceneExcitingProse Author:Joyce Carol Oates
“I love the resource of the Internet. I use it all the time. Anything I'm writing - for example, if I'm writing a scene about Washington D.C. and I want to know where this monument is, I can find it right away, I can get a picture of the monument, it just makes your life so much easier, especially if you're writing fiction. You can check stuff so much quicker, and I think that's all great for writers.” IfsThinkingKnowsWantWritingI CanUseStuffFictionExampleInternetEasierSceneResourcesChecksMonumentWriting Fiction Author:Dave Barry