Screenwriting 101: Horton Foote

“I keep notebooks, and sometimes just a phrase in a notebook will start me off. I never know. I’ve also learned that you can’t really predict the time for the consolidation of the idea. You can use your will, and you can say, ‘I know this is wonderful — I’m going to make it work,’ and it just won’t do it. Something is larger there, and you have to say, ‘Okay, you win.’ Katherine Anne Porter has that theory about the drawer: you put something in a drawer, and when you go back to it, something has happened to it.”

— Horton Foote

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