That's the trouble with stories. People start out fantastic. You think they're extraordinary, but it turns out as the work goes along, they're just average with a good education.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
A lot of times you get people writing wonderful sentences and paragraphs, and they fall in love with their prose style, but the stories really aren't that terrific.
Stories are the rich, unseen underlayer of the most ordinary moments.
I don't know any writer for whom it comes easily. Maybe John Updike - a story would just seem to come to him whole, you know, out of a personal experience. But the rest of us, I think, are not so lucky, and I had to work hard, yeah.
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.
I never limit myself when it comes to telling stories; I think people can see that in my body of work. It's just about, 'What's a great story? Is it unique? Is it a challenge?'
I think that one of the things you have to do to become a storyteller is spend a lot of time reading stories.
I've always believed in working hard, and I'm grateful that people seem to connect with the kinds of stories I'm passionate about telling.
Everyone seems quite good at stories and making them up.
Writers have been in terrible situations and have yet managed to produce extraordinary work.
Stories are amazing and powerful because they can resonate with people depending on their needs and experiences and speak truths we need to hear in that moment in time.