#telling

MYTH: Beautiful Writing Trumps All REALITY: Storytelling Trumps Beautiful Writing, Every Time ↗

— Lisa Cron

#on-writing #storytelling #wired-for-story #writing #writing-myths

Now, before you make a movie, you have to have a script, and before you have a script, you have to have a story; though some avant-garde directors have tried to dispense with the latter item, you'll find their work only at art theaters. ↗

— Arthur C. Clarke

#storytelling #art

Fairy tales are rife with transformation — from beast to handsome prince, from dirty scullery maid to well-dressed princess. It is perhaps no coincidence that nature in the Cinderella stories facilitates transformation, for nature itself is a changeable thing, from season to season, from a sunny day to rain, from an egg to a flying bird in a matter of weeks. (Source: "The Nature of Cinderella".) ↗

— Marie Rutkoski

#fairy-tales #stories #telling-tales #writing #nature

When many story-tellers occupy themselves with a social world which offers no great variety of lively action, their stories will probably resemble one another as to many of the major incidents, and if they draw on these limited resources like spend thrifts such resemblances will be inevitable--and therefore not significant. ↗

— Mary Lascelles

#social-world #storytelling #writers #art

Has there ever been a society which has died of dissent? Several have died of conformity in our lifetime.” Jacob Bronowski in Science and Human Values ↗

— Jacob Bronowski

#lesion #truth-telling #science

After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world. ↗

— Philip Pullman

#needs #stories #storytelling #writing #need

There are books full of great writing that don't have very good stories. Read sometimes for the story... don't be like the book-snobs who won't do that. Read sometimes for the words--the language. Don't be like the play-it-safers who won't do that. But when you find a book that has both a good story and good words, treasure that book. ↗

— Stephen King

#on-writing #stories #storytelling #words

Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly. ↗

— Franz Kafka

#truth-telling #writing #logic

Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it. ↗

— Howard Zinn

#civil-disobedience #democracy #dissent #law #protest

When the waiter brought the cheese-board, there was a large carrot carved in the shape of a mermaid sitting between the Dolcelatte and the Pecorino. Teo could have sworn that the carrot-mermaid flexed her tail and plunged her little hand inside a smelly Gorgonzola. 'Tyromancy, ye know,' remarked the mermaid. 'The Ancient Art of Divination by Cheese.' Then she pulled her tiny hand out and inspected the green cheese-mold on her tiny fingers. 'Lackaday!' she moaned. 'Stinking! It goes poorly for Venice and Teodora, it do! ↗

— Michelle Lovric

#divination #foretelling #humour #mermaid #art