(Nabokov said the act of writing a story begins with a throb.) Offer half a dozen such maxims, I hoped, and I could disguise my inability to come up with an answer. (Know them, embrace them, and there you have it.) T S Eliot on how “immature writers imitate, and mature writers steal.” (It’s not what you pilfer but how you use what you’ve pilfered.) Hilary Mantel on the creative act - coming from the gut, she posits, as she reflects from her head. Susan Sontag on how limitations form voice. Impulse, too often my muse, instructed me to offer a few pithy references. If only I knew, I could pen a best-seller, rest up into my dotage. Not “How do I work with actors?” (important, yes ), not “How do I block a scene?” (depends), not “What do I need to know about lenses?” (let the physics serve the storytelling, the emotion), not “How much rehearsal do I need per page?” (maybe you have the wrong idea here?), not “How many scenes should there be in a movie?” (you’ve definitely got the wrong end of the stick), nor “Should I storyboard or not storyboard?” (pre-visualization, on-set flexibility the more fundamental considerations), but “ How do you find your voice?” Well-known decade, band, singer, well-known voice.Ī student came with a question.

Impulse season 1 subtitulada