Brian McDonald Quotes
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Legendary comic book storyteller Will Eisner put it this way: "Technique is secondary. Technique comes as a result of how you do what you do.
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Playwright August Wilson said, "To live it life as an artist is to be willing to face the deepest parts of yourself. To wrestle with your demons until your spirit becomes larger and larger and your demons smaller and smaller.
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Art is not to show people who you are; it is to show people who they are.
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Stories are the collective wisdom of everyone who has ever lived. Your job as a storyteller is not simply to entertain. Nor is it to be noticed for the way you turn a phrase. You have a very important job--one of the most important. Your job is to let people know that everyone shares their feelings--and that these feelings bind us. Your job is a healing art, and like all healers, you have a responsibility. Let people know they are not alone. You must make people understand that we are all the same.
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Stories are not complicated. They are, in fact, deceptively simple. But like anything simple, they are difficult to create.
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Because change is never easy, and is resisted, it is your job as storyteller to apply as much pressure on your characters as possible. You must back them into a corner and force them to change. Make it as painful as you can. Bring them to the brink of physical or emotional death if you possibly can. Your protagonists will be measured by the size of their struggle, so don't pull any punches.
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I will not attempt to say this better than Buddha, who said, "The practice of making others happy is based upon the clear understanding of life which is Oneness. In deep gratitude, let us realize this Oneness of all life, the heart of which is Compassion.