“The writer's characters must stand before us with a wonderful clarity, such continuous clarity that nothing they do strikes us as improbable behavior for just that character, even when the character's action is, as sometimes happens, something that came as a surprise to the writer himself. We must understand, and the writer before us must understand, more than we know about the character; otherwise neither the writer nor the reader after him could feel confident of the character's behavior when the character acts freely.” CharacterFictionUnderstandKnowCharacter BuildingCharacter Development Book:The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers Source: The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers
“He must shape simultaneously (in an expanding creative moment) his characters, plot, and setting, each inextricably connected to the others; he must make his whole world in a single, coherent gesture, as a potter makes a pot...” WritingCharacterSettingWriterPlotStory Book:The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers Source: The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers
“As in the universe every atom has an effect, however minuscule, on every other atom, so that to pinch the fabric of Time and Space at any point is to shake the whole length and breadth of it, so in fiction every element has effect on every other, so that to change a character's name from Jane to Cynthia is to make the fictional ground shudder under her feet.” CharacterTimeSpaceFiction Book:The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers Source: The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers
