I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they're going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind of plumbing there's going to be. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, they know if planted a fantasy seed or mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don't know how many branches it's going to have, they find out as it grows. And I'm much more a gardener than an architect.
It seems to me that I have just written something terribly stupid, but I have no time to correct it, as I said; besides, I give myself my word purposely not to correct a single line in this manuscript, even if I notice that I am contradicting myself every five lines.
— Ippolit Terentyev, The Idiot
We never worried about how we were gonna get him out [of various dilemmas]. If we did, we'd never get him in!
— Chester Gould, to LIFE Magazine, on writing Dick Tracy
The thing that constantly astonishes me about doing Digger is how things I thought of two seconds before drawing the comic develop such a life of their own. Five hundred pages later, Ed is far and away the most beloved character in Digger, his culture’s been fleshed out in bizarre and intricate ways, but at the time I drew him, he was just some drooling hyena monster
that I decided to throw at Digger because I couldn’t get the muzzle right when I tried to draw a bear.
that I decided to throw at Digger because I couldn’t get the muzzle right when I tried to draw a bear.— Ursula Vernon, regarding Digger
Experience the joy of fighting a monster who doesn't yet have item drops or art or messages for when it hits you. Thrill as you repeatedly click an item until we finish making it usable, at which point it probably generates a weird error message or deletes one of your other items or something. Express your complete lack of surprise as we reveal the dark truth behind KoL — that we have no idea what we are doing as game developers, but boy do we have fun while we do it.
— Promo text for Kingdom of Loathing's first Twitch Livestream World Event
We started filming without a script, without a cast and without a shark.
— Richard Dreyfuss on Jaws
Here were Jack Nicholson and Kim Basinger walking up this cathedral, and halfway up Jack turns around and says, 'Why am I walking up all these stairs? Where am I going?' 'We'll talk about it when you get to the top!' I had to tell him that I didn't know.
— Tim Burton on filming Batman (1989)
According to IMDB, they started filming without a completed script. No, they finished filming without a completed script.
The best moments in writing is when you discover you did something absolutely genius by accident.
I discovered at that stage that actually writing something is rather akin to reading it, only slower. Unless you plan it out horribly in advance, which I can't do, you're finding out the plot as you go along.
Who's the guy in black? There were thoughts that maybe it was Michael's twin brother, but nobody knew, not even the writers. Seriously. So if they didn't have a good plan, what was the point of opening the lid? Since we know how they abandoned the last cliffhanger, why should we even give a shit about this one?
While I never intended for this comic to go for more than 20-25 pages, and never imagined anyone would read those, I still did that back-to-front plotting because it’s just how I tackle stories. I included this line as a set up for a punchline we would never see figuring: hey, it doesn’t matter either way. This is part of why I have such a hard time watching those fancy TV and movie franchises people go nuts for. I try, I do, but you can always tell the exact moment the creators started to scramble because they never thought about what to do in the unlikely event that the thing they’re making got popular enough to justify more than one season or installment.
— Brian Clevinger commenting on the seventh 8-Bit Theater strip - the punchline did happen much later
the seventh 8-Bit Theater strip - the punchline did happen much laterThe script wasn’t there when we started shooting. Tom and I often laugh about this, that during prep on that movie we’d say to ourselves, ‘There’s nothing like a looming start date for the shoot to put pressure down to get the script right.’ And then while we were shooting the movie, we’d say to ourselves, ‘There’s nothing like a looming wrap date to really put pressure down to getting the script done.’ Then when while we’re editing the movie, we’re like, ‘There’s nothing like a looming release date to force you to get the script right.’
Riku: Why did you hide this information from us?
Mickey: Are you talking about my shirt or Aqua?
Riku: Both.
Mickey: Because Nomura didn’t think of this ahead of time.
Riku: That actually makes perfect sense.
Mickey: Are you talking about my shirt or Aqua?
Riku: Both.
Mickey: Because Nomura didn’t think of this ahead of time.
Riku: That actually makes perfect sense.
I met a lot of things on the way that astonished me. Tom Bombadil I knew already; but I had never been to Bree. Strider sitting in the corner at the inn was a shock, and I had no more idea who he was than had Frodo. The Mines of Moria had been a mere name; and of Lothlórien no word had reached my mortal ears till I came there. Far away I knew there were Horse-lords on the confines of an ancient Kingdom of Men, but Fangorn Forest was an unforeseen adventure. I had never heard of the House of Eorl nor of the Stewards of Gondor. Most disquieting of all, Saruman had never been revealed to me, and I was as mystified as Frodo at Gandalf's failure to appear on September 22.
"The script developed as we were making it, and at one point the producer Suzanne Todd would be sitting in the corner on set, writing the script on her laptop. In the middle of speaking lines, I'd get handed rewrites, and a producer would say: 'Here, say this instead.'
—Paul Freeman on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie
