NEIL GAIMAN TEACHES THE ART OF STORYTELLING
Cut to a desk covered in index cards. "There are two kinds of writers: architects and gardeners. Architects know every room, every joist. Gardeners throw a seed in the ground and see what grows. I am a gardener. For The Ocean at the End of the Lane , I had a boy, a pond, and an old woman. That was it. The plot came from asking: 'What would happen if...?' But here’s the secret: character is plot. What does your character want more than anything? And what happens if they don't get it?"
"When I was a kid, I didn’t think I was going to be a writer. I thought I was going to be a superhero. Then I realized no one was going to give me X-ray vision, so I decided to build worlds instead." MasterClass - Neil Gaiman Teaches the Art of St...
He acts out two voices, shifting in his chair. "Dialogue is not conversation. Real conversation is full of 'umms' and 'hellos' and 'how’s the weather.' Dialogue is a sword fight. Every line should either advance the plot or reveal character. And what they don’t say is more important than what they do. Subtext is the ghost in the room. Learn to write silence."
MasterClass – Neil Gaiman Teaches the Art of Storytelling. 19 lessons, 4+ hours. Included with membership. End of generated text. NEIL GAIMAN TEACHES THE ART OF STORYTELLING Cut
Neil walks through a misty cemetery (location of The Graveyard Book inspiration). "The last page is not the end. It’s a door. You want the reader to close the book, sit in silence, and then open it again to page one. Or better yet, go write their own story. Because the world needs new stories. It needs your story. So go. Make good art."
He holds up a thick stack of rejection slips. "I have a wall of these. From The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction , from publishers, from my own mother. (She said The Graveyard Book was too dark. I ignored her.) The secret to a career is not talent. It’s stubbornness. Finish what you start. Let the work be bad. You can fix bad. You can’t fix nothing. And when you finish? Send it out. Then start the next thing." Gardeners throw a seed in the ground and see what grows
"Write the story you want to read." – Neil Gaiman
"Stories are the only thing we truly own. They’re how we make sense of the chaos. In this class, I’m not going to give you a formula. Formulas kill stories. I’m going to give you a toolbox."