A Quote by Stephen King

I think the best stories always end up being about the people rather than the event, which is to say character-driven. — © Stephen King
I think the best stories always end up being about the people rather than the event, which is to say character-driven.
To me, it all comes down to things being character-driven. It's hard for me to look beyond that. CG and all this cool stuff - so be it. But to me, it pretty much begins and ends with character-driven plots rather than technologically-driven plots.
I think a writer's first job is to entertain, even in novels: to tell a compelling story that pulls the reader along toward an end. At the same time, the best stories are character-driven.
The great thing about television is that you get to tell, like with "The Walking Dead", 16 hours worth of character-driven storytelling in less time than it takes to make a feature film. So, it really is a medium at least for storytellers who are passionate about not only the genre but also the character-driven genre stories. It's probably a better medium.
I'm drawn to stories about ordinary people who get tangled up in an extraordinary event or idea or emotion. I'm not saying I don't love films about super-people or super-doctors, but my preference is for stories about how we get through this life, what it is to be human, because I'm always struggling with it myself.
Event cinema is what it is, and I understand why it's successful. It started with things like 'Jaws,' which are extraordinary movies. But what we've lost are great character films which are beautifully directed and had great movie stars in them. Films that were about something rather than about spectacle.
A non-event ... is better to write about than an event, because with a non-event you can make up the meaning yourself, it means whatever you say it means.
Plays are literature: the word, the idea. Film is much more like the form in which we dream - in action and images (Television is furniture). I think a great play can only be a play. It fits the stage better than it fits the screen. Some stories insist on being film, can't be contained on stage. In the end, all writing serves to answer the same question: Why are we alive? And the form the question takes - play, film, novel - is dictated, I suppose, by whether its story is driven by character or place.
I've always thought of the project as a sort of sexually driven digestive system, that it was a consumer and a producer of matter. And it is desire driven, rather than driven by hunger or anything like that.
Im drawn to stories about ordinary people who get tangled up in an extraordinary event or idea or emotion. Im not saying I dont love films about super-people or super-doctors, but my preference is for stories about how we get through this life, what it is to be human, because Im always struggling with it myself.
I always say people would rather be nice than right. I like to be nice too, but come on. People frequently ask me, what is my definition of politically correct. My answer is always the same: the elevation of sensitivity over truth. People would rather be nice than right, rather be sensitive than true. Well, being nice and sensitive are important, but they're not more important than being right; they're not more important than the truth.
Rather than just saying, like, 'Your economy is the be all and end all,' I go back to my three roots that I've often said about this being best country for business, the best to raise a family in, and the best to grow old in with a sense of dignity and respect.
I think the only thing that we know how to do is look at our characters and ask what is the character doing right now and what do we need to do, and tell it from that place. If we really make it character driven and theme driven, I think we're going to offer up something new for the audience.
I think it's quite common and realistic. There are many stories like this [in Waitress]. [Jenna, my character] marriage looks really horrible up on the screen but I think there are a lot of people in bad relationships who wake up and think to themselves: "Wow, how did I end up here? Why am I still here and so unhappy and not satisfied with my life?"
You never know what you're going to end up with when you sit down to write something. At the end, if it holds, it can do this multifarious thing - which is to open things rather than close them, to make them bigger rather than smaller, to cross those divides which we live every day of our lives.
The shows I've been working on, especially 'Parenthood' and 'Friday Night Lights,' I think are completely character-driven stories. I think, for most writers, that's a privilege to be telling those kinds of stories. It's erroneous to me.
My key interest in choosing scripts is character-driven stories, because there are so many stories that sacrifice character for plot.
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