Interview (Video): Ray Bradbury

A half-hour conversation from 1974 with the famous author of science fiction and fantasy.

I was so thrilled to discover this video as I had been looking for the source of this quote for months:

I’ve had a sign over my typewriter for twenty-five years now which reads, “Don’t think.” You must never think at the typewriter, you must feel.

Like most writer quotes on writing that float around the internet, it is unattributed. The problem was I wanted to include it in the book I am writing An Introduction to Character-Driven Screenwriting and Storytelling: The Protagonist’s Journey, however, I needed to be able to cite the source.

Searching for it was one of the reasons I ran the Sunday with Ray Bradbury series here on the blog, to work my way through Bradbury’s memoir on writing Zen in the Art of Writing. While he wrote about the same sentiment, it turns out the exact quote is not part of that book.

And so the search continued. With a due date to turn in my draft to the publisher pressing down on me, I continued my efforts… and then, I found it! A January 21, 1974 interview on a public television series called Day at Night featuring host James Day. Here it is!

To see the exact comment, scroll to the 11:00 minute mark. Another reason I was thrilled to find the video is I could add something pivotal to the quote:

I’ve had a sign over my typewriter for twenty-five years now which reads, “Don’t think.” You must never think at the typewriter, you must feel. Your intellect is always buried in that feeling anyway. You collect up a data, you do a lot of thinking away from your typewriter. But at the typewriter, you should be living. It should be a living experience.

I love that last line: It should be a living experience. Screenwriters write in the present tense. That means when we write a scene, we are living in the moment. It is our obligation to be… here… now.

How best to engender such a living experience, a feeling place when writing? Why, through your characters, of course. For this scene, this living moment, ask yourself: Where is each character emotionally? Where are they in relation to the plotline? Where are they in relation to the themeline? What are they feeling right now?

Per Bradbury’s sentiment, this is something I preach to my film school students all the time: After all the hard work of breaking your story, when you actually sit down to write… Don’t think. Feel. Indeed, I have written about that same attitude here.

Anyway, I am happy to have found this video, so now I can include the quote in my book. More than that, I can share the interview with you!

For 100s of interviews with screenwriters and filmmakers hosted here at Go Into The Story, go here.