A Quote by Donald McKay
To come up with the ending to a story and then work backwards is like tying your shoe with one hand only.
Related Quotes
I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off.
Well, I don't ever leave out details, in that I don't come up with information or description which I don't then use. I only ever come up with what seems to me absolutely essential to make the story work. I'm not usually an overwriter. As I revise, it's usually a matter of adding in as much vivid details as seem necessary to make the story come clear without slowing down the momentum of the story.
I write the last line, and then I write the line before that. I find myself writing backwards for a while, until I have a solid sense of how that ending sounds and feels. You have to know what your voice sounds like at the end of the story, because it tells you how to sound when you begin.
A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow. Don't wait for an inspired ending to come to mind. Work your way to the ending and see what comes up.
Ambition means tying your well-being to what other people say or do. Self-indulgence means tying it to the things that happen to you. Sanity means tying it to your own actions.
The story, I like to say and remember, is always smarter than you—there will be patterns of theme, image, and idea that are much savvier and more complex than what you could come up with on your own. Find them with your marking pens as they emerge in your drafts. Become a student of your work in progress. Look for what your material is telling you about your material. Every aspect of a story has its own story.
There have been times where you do the red carpet in a certain shoe, and you go into the bathroom, you take that shoe off, you put the other shoe on from your purse, and then you walk around for the rest of the night.
The most precise work is generally done by hand, with hand tools. Some people rely on machines for their precision, and my way of working is backwards. I rely on the machines for doing the gross stock removal and then, when it comes to the final refinements and fitting of joints and things, making things work together, I rely more on sharp-edged tools that I push by hand.
It's always easiest for me as a writer if I know I have a great ending. It can make everything else work. If you don't have a good ending, it's the hardest things in the world to come up with one. I always loved the ending of 'The Kite Runner,' and the scenes that are most faithful to the book are the last few scenes.
When the ending finally comes to me, I often have to backtrack and make the beginning point towards that ending. Other times, I know exactly what the ending will be before I begin, like with the story "A Brief Encounter With the Enemy." It was all about the ending - that's what motivated me.
Tell me a story, Pew. What kind of story, child? A story with a happy ending. There’s no such thing in all the world. As a happy ending? As an ending.
Concentration is inspiration. You must be completely overtaken by your work and your subject. Only then do all your influences and experience come up to the surface.
I want to expand the question of when something is done. I want to vex the ending. I want to mess around with that. I like the idea that if you make a work that has no clear ending, then you must play with the ending. Because if you don't, you're not highlighting the weird, lovely openness of abstraction.
I learned to run backwards from Muhammad Ali. He told me about running backwards because you try to imitate everything you do in the ring, so sometimes you back up. So you have to train your legs to go backwards.
You want to fall in love with a shoe, go ahead. A shoe can't love you back, but, on the other hand, a shoe can't hurt you too deeply either. And there are so many nice-looking shoes.
There are days when I can hear men tying their shoe laces in the gallery.
Related Authors
Alber Elbaz Quotes
Israeli
Designer
Brad Goreski Quotes
American
Designer
Carolina Herrera Quotes
Venezuelan
Designer
Christian Louboutin Quotes
French
Designer
Coco Chanel Quotes
French
Designer
Diane von Furstenberg Quotes
Belgian
Designer
Donna Karan Quotes
American
Designer
Giorgio Armani Quotes
Italian
Designer
Jonathan Ive Quotes
English
Designer
Karl Lagerfeld Quotes
German
Designer
Lauren Conrad Quotes
American
Designer
Marc Jacobs Quotes
American
Designer
Sonia Rykiel Quotes
French
Designer
Tim Gunn Quotes
American
Designer
Tom Ford Quotes
American
Designer
Vivienne Westwood Quotes
English
Designer