You can’t think a story — you can’t think, “I shall do a story to improve mankind.” It’s nonsense! All the great stories, all the really worthwhile plays, are emotional experiences. If you have to ask yourself whether you love a girl, or whether you love a boy, forget it — you don’t! A story is the same way — you either feel a story and need to write it, or you’d better not write it.
— Ray Bradbury
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I grew up reading Ray Bradbury stories–The Illustrated Man, The Martian Chronicles, Dandelion Wine and so on. They were categorized as science fiction but they were really just stories of great humanity in different settings and times. Every time I read a quote from Ray Bradbury or read an interview, I like him more and more, if only for that same humanity that runs through his books.
A case in point is found in a short bit of an interview that he gave in 1972 during a drive with two students, Lisa Potts and Chad Coates, who had picked him up at his home in LA and were taking him to deliver a lecture at their college in Orange County. This part of the interview is animated by Blank on Blank, which produces great animations of rare found interviews from notable people. Check out their site.
The quote at the top is from this interview and I think pretty much applies to the emotional experiencing of any creative work. I have heard people say after looking at a piece of art that they don’t know anything about art, which to me implies that they don’t like it but don’t know whether they should say so because they might somehow be wrong in doing so. But you often know instantly whether something hits or misses your emotional buttons, whether or not you say it aloud. You have to learn to trust your own reaction.
But enough said, take a gander at the short film with Ray Bradbury.
Redtree Times 