Because every
story begins
with words

video what it’s like to work with a script doctor

Video: What it’s like to work with a script doctor.

When writing a novel, that’s pretty much entirely what life turns into: “House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1,500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day.”

Neil Gaiman

The character that lasts is an ordinary guy with some extraordinary qualities.

Raymond Chandler

Just don’t be boring!

Robert Liebmann

No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader’s intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.

E. B. White

If you haven’t got an idea, start a story anyway. You can always throw it away, and maybe by the time you get to the fourth page you will have an idea, and you’ll only have to throw away the first three pages.

William C. Gault

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.

Christopher Hampton

A writer is a world trapped in a person.

Victor Hugo

My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.

Anton Chekhov

To me, movies and music go hand in hand. When I’m writing a script, one of the first things I do is find the music I’m going to play for the opening sequence.

Quentin Tarantino

The road to ignorance is paved with good editors.

George Bernard Shaw

A true author, no matter the medium, is an artist with godlike knowledge of his subject, and the proof of his authorship is that his pages smack of authority.

Robert McKee

Biography should be written by an acute enemy.

Arthur Balfour

Read a thousand books and your words will flow like a river.

Lisa See

Do you know what a playwright is? A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage.

Edward Albee

I don’t care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.

Roald Dahl

I do not over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.

Tom Clancy

If the sex scene doesn’t make you want to do it — whatever it is they’re doing — it hasn’t been written right.

Sloan Wilson

Do not place a photograph of your favorite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.

Roddy Doyle

Reading and weeping opens the door to one’s heart, but writing and weeping opens the window to one’s soul.

M. K. Simmons

It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.

Robert Benchley