What the readers want is a good story, and what the writers always want to luck into, it's a good story.

I do love the challenge of screenplays. They're so difficult, such an alien form. It makes them endlessly fascinating. Something I can't keep my fingers out of.

This is form and content and diction and tone and imagination all looking up at the exact same moment: When Molly Tanzer claps once at the front of the classroom.

I think writers can get too attached to these worlds they create, these characters they make real, so that, instead of ending the story where the story's asking to end, they draw it out, unable to let go.

The truth is, poverty's the environment for alcoholism, and the reservations aren't rich. Maybe cleaning people up in fiction is just as dangerous as presenting them unfiltered.

What the readers want is a good story, and what the writers always want to luck into, it's a good story.

There's no really other way to learn writing than by writing. So accelerate that as much as you can. The more you write, the better you'll get. What also helps, though, is walking away from broken stuff. Not everything's going to work. Killing two years of your life trying to resuscitate a dying novel, I don't know. Why not just write a different one? You'll have more ideas. You can't help having ideas.