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Screenwriting is always about what people say or do, whereas good writing is about a thought process or an abstract image or an internal monologue, none of which works on screen.

David Nicholls

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David Nicholls
Age: 57
Born: 1966
Born: November 30
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Eastleigh Town
Process
Internal
Thought
Whereas
Writing
Screen
Good
Screens
Always
Abstract
People
Image
Monologue
None
Monologues
Works
Internals

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She made you decent, and in return you made her so happy
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At university, I used to write silly little sketches and monologues, but never fiction.
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She glanced across to where Tilly and her brand new husband were posing for photographs, Tilly fluttering a fan coquettishly in front of her face. 'Unfortunately I didn't realise there was a French Revolutionary theme.' 'The Marie-Antoinette thing?' said Dexter. 'Well at least we know there'll be cake.
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He wanted to live life in such a way that if a photograph were taken at random, it would be a cool photograph.
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Be good. Do something good.
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A screenplay is really an instruction manual, and it can be interpreted in any number of ways. The casting, the choice of location, the costumes and make-up, the actors' reading of a line or emphasis of a word, the choice of lens and the pace of the cutting - these are all part of the translation.
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These days grief seems like walking on a frozen river most of the time he feels safe enough, but there is always that danger that he will plunge through. Now he hears the ice creak beneath him, and so intense and panicking is the sensation that he has to stand for a moment, press his hands to his face and catch his breath.
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Whatever happens tomorrow, we had today and I'll always remember it
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Everything was fine, and she had the rare, new sensation of being exactly where she wanted to be.
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I applied for the University of Life. Didn't get the grades.
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She was reaching the limits of how much its possible to change a man
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The future rose up ahead of her, a succession of empty days, each more daunting and unknowable than the one before her.
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I had made this mistake once before, on a school trip to the Victoria and Albert Museum, when I followed a sign marked WOMEN, thinking it was an exhibition on the changing roles of women in society, and actually ended up standing in the ladies' toilets.
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Dexter, I love you so much. So, so much, and I probably always will. I just don't like you anymore. I'm sorry.
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He has found himself more and more reliant on her at exactly the point that she has become less available to him.
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And then some days you wake up and everything's perfect
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Better by far to be good and courageous and bold and to make difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you
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...and once again Dexter is struck by how easy conversation can be when no-one is in their right mind
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The true writer, the born writer, will scribble words on scraps of litter, the back of a bus tickets, on the wall of a cell.
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…and Emma felt another small portion of her soul fall away.
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