Stories have always been the things that entertain me and make me feel happy and sad and move me and give me the experience of being able to live many lives in one lifetime. It's the best thing about being alive.
Villains often more the story along while the heros react to the villains, so the villain becomes the engine of the story.
Research is always the best part. As we dug deeper into the history and mythology behind each of the hallows, we discovered more and more stories - some of them deserving of novels in themselves.
All great literary works influence us as writers, not their stories as much as their storytelling ability.
I care more about making sure the story is correct and the characters are behaving in character than I do about the individual jokes.
I try very hard to tell stories and not lecture. I try to approach things as an amateur and not an expert, so that when I'm doing something, I'm starting out in a place a lot like where my readers start out - which is to say, naïve.
I'm doing a record that has a story that runs through all of the songs, and then there is also a film that goes along with it.
I think I would love a shot at remaking 'The Philadelphia Story,' as daunting as it is. I still think it's fantastic. I love the '30s comedies because they're allowed to be both comic and elegant, and the women are so complicated in them.
I tend not to know what the plot is or the story is or even the theme. Those things come later, for me.
It's a responsibility of the writer to get the reader out of the story somehow.
I fill up the well of stories in my head - without ever knowing I'm doing it.
Wherever my story takes me, however dark and difficult the theme, there is always some hope and redemption, not because readers like happy endings, but because I am an optimist at heart.
A sane person would think that Wal-Mart would never carry 'Capitalism: A Love Story' because it's simply not in their best interests to inform their customers of their shady past.
When I get a script and do my work, and then show up on set and work, it's the same zone that I'm in when I'm in front of a canvas, or when I'm writing a story about one of my paintings, or when I'm playing music. Whatever I'm doing at any given time, it's the same exact zone.
You should be writing for the love of the story, and when it comes time to return to the manuscript, everything else belongs behind a closed door.
My best clients tell stories that inspire. They tell stories about situations that you can identify with.
Novels seem to exist because of this need to know and connect, and so story becomes charged with necessity.
Science is claiming ever more ground from popular stories of the kind we thought we weren't to believe in.
The guys on the ground are the guys I care about. I've had the most satisfaction telling their stories. But when you're in combat with somebody, yes, a bond does grow.
The way the Pentagon and its defenders have pushed back against this story is to say: "They weren't doing psychological operations, they were doing information operations and public affairs. They were just helping us spin senators like we normally do."
By the second sentence of a pitch, the entirety of the story should be explained.
Parenthood offers many lessons in patience and sacrifice. But ultimately, it is a lesson in humility. The very best thing about your life is a short stage in someone else’s story.
But that is another story and shall be told another time.
Story of our species...everyone knows it's coming, but not so soon.
Rueful, bittersweet, funny, written with tenderness and bite, Merrill Feitell's stories, like so many classic short stories, are made from the plain and painful stuff of this world, and haunted by the possibility, and the impossibility, of a better one.
