Because every
story begins
with words

Eight secrets to writing a low-budget movie

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Eight secrets to writing a low-budget movie.

I haven’t got 10 rules that guarantee success, though I promise I’d share them if I did. The truth is that I found success by stumbling off alone in a direction most people thought was a dead end, breaking all the 1990s shibboleths about children’s books in the process.

J.K. Rowling

A writer is a world trapped in a person.

Victor Hugo

Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it.

Truman Capote

If you start with a bang, you won’t end with a whimper.

T.S. Eliot

I’m writing a book. I’ve got the page numbers done.

Stephen Wright

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

Raymond Chandler

You may be able to take a break from writing, but you won’t be able to take a break from being a writer.

Stephen Leigh

Critics are people who sit on the mountaintop and look down on the battlefield. When the fighting is finished, they take it upon themselves to come down from the mountain and shoot the survivors.

Robert Altman

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

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

I have a structured songwriting process. I start with the music and try to come up with musical ideas, then the melody, then the hook, and the lyrics come last.

John Legend

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

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

Lisa See

Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very”; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

Mark Twain

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

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

Thomas Jefferson

It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil, trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.

William Faulkner

Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Good instincts usually tell you what to do long before your head has figured it out.

Michael Burke

If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.

Oscar Wilde