Tom Leveen > Quotes

“I'm the girl nobody knows until she commits suicide. Then suddenly everyone had a class with her.”
― Tom Leveen, Party

“Friends are how God apologizes for your family."---Mike”
― Tom Leveen, Zero

“A good rock band is like a great lover. Their rhythms simultaneously jolt and calm you. They know when and where to tease you to make it feel the best, how to draw from you the ultimate pleasure.”
― Tom Leveen

“... I completely forgot about the pizza until the cops showed up.”
― Tom Leveen, Party

“You're damn skippy I am.”
― Tom Leveen, Party

“Don’t let your mouth write checks your heart can’t cash,”
― Tom Leveen, Random

“Whoa, hello, assertiveness! How lovely to make your acquaintance.”
― Tom Leveen, Zero

“Not guilty doesn't mean you're innocent.”
― Tom Leveen

“Because that's what being dead means," Andy says. "It's the zenit of 'never'. Never again, never this, never that. You don't come back from never. You can't enjoy never. You just sit there, not existing, not listening to your favorite songs or eating you favorite foods. Never.”
― Tom Leveen, Random

“However, since I lacked the testicular fortitude to make contact with Becky, I went ahead and called Sydney the next afternoon and met her at the mall that night.”
― Tom Leveen, Manicpixiedreamgirl

“Every time a character enters or exits, the relationships between the remaining characters changes. So should the dialogue.”
― Tom Leveen, How To Write Awesome Dialogue! For Fiction, Film and Theatre: Techniques from a published author and theatre guy

“Characters do not speak unless they want something. Each speaking character has an agenda. Every line they say out loud advances that agenda.”
― Tom Leveen, How To Write Awesome Dialogue! For Fiction, Film and Theatre: Techniques from a published author and theatre guy

“I should slap you.”
“But it might turn me on, and then what?”
― Tom Leveen, Shackled

“Dialogue can be tough because it has so many requirements to be truly wonderful. It must sound authentic but not overly realistic (think of all of our hiccups and pauses and repetitions and filler words). It must move the story forward while revealing character. It must entertain and provide information. It must have “Voice” with a capital V, and not sound derivative of other writers who went before you. And if you’re working in first-person, then you have to do all of this within the narrative too.”
― Tom Leveen, How To Write Awesome Dialogue! For Fiction, Film and Theatre: Techniques from a published author and theatre guy

“There's a whole big gulf between innocent and not guilty. You won't be in court today and plead innocent, you'll plead not guilty. Two very, very different things, if you ask me.”
― Tom Leveen, Random

“An “awesome” plot does not necessarily mean unique or original. For our purposes, “awesome” merely means strong. Well-defined. Clear. Our first and only real rule about writing of any kind is this; Clarity Is God. Strive for clarity in all aspects of your writing, from the plot and theme to the dialogue and narrative.”
― Tom Leveen, How To Write Awesome Dialogue! For Fiction, Film and Theatre: Techniques from a published author and theatre guy

“We’re all afraid to die. So we pretend there’s something else out there for us to make ourselves feel better. Only, there’s not. We’re all alone.”
― Tom Leveen, Hellworld

“Where your scene is set—where the characters are physically located in the storyworld—changes their dialogue.”
― Tom Leveen, How To Write Awesome Dialogue! For Fiction, Film and Theatre: Techniques from a published author and theatre guy

“Every novel has a point of view, and the world should be seen through that point of view. That point of view needs to be consistent, but also contextualized.”
― Tom Leveen, How To Write Awesome Dialogue! For Fiction, Film and Theatre: Techniques from a published author and theatre guy

“Where the character is coming from before he enters into a scene should influence his dialogue.”
― Tom Leveen, How To Write Awesome Dialogue! For Fiction, Film and Theatre: Techniques from a published author and theatre guy