Best writing & character Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“Expressing political opinion can be a powerful way to establish a character's voice when writing fiction.”

Way Writing Character Political Voice Powerful Fiction Opinion Writing Fiction Political Opinions

“I was able to work out all sorts of attitudes to style and event and character, all of which affected the way I came to think about my own writing. I believe that all good writers are original.”

Thinking Way Writing Believe Character Able I Believe My Own Attitude Style Events Originals Work Out Affected Good Writers

Author:Margaret Mahy

“I'm not really one of those people who goes and writes some big back story and agonizes over characters. I think you kind of can get it. For me personally, it's just kind of more instinctive. But I don't have kind of an acting background. I fell into it accidentally.”

People Thinking Writing Kind Character Stories Bigs Acting Backgrounds

Author:Rose McGowan

“I grew up in a community where it was not the exception to be a good girl. It was sort of expected. And all of my friends were good girls too, and my boyfriends were good boys. Everybody was pretty nice. And that affects how I write my characters. There aren't very many bad guys in my novels.”

Writing Character Guy Girl Community Boys Novel Nice Grew Grew Up My Friends Expected Exception Bad Guys My Boyfriend Good Girl Good Boy

Author:Stephenie Meyer

“TV is a different animal these days. You can bring together really smart writing and directing, in-depth character development and really meaty political and emotional stories.”

Writing Different Character Stories Together Political Animal Emotional Tvs Development Smart Depth These Days Character Development Really Smart Different Animals

Author:Connie Nielsen

“I believe writers need to be chameleons, or like Meryl Streep, who can play all sorts of characters. A good writer should be able to cross gender lines and people of all social classes. So for me, writing from a male point of view would be a great challenge, that I would look forward to taking on.”

People Needs Should Writing Believe Looks Play Character Would Be Able I Believe Social Challenges Lines Views Class Crosses Males Gender Point Of View Good Writers Social Class Chameleon

Author:Marisha Pessl

“When I'm creating characters, I definitely think of theme songs. Writing for me is very visual, so I sometimes think of it in terms of a movie with a soundtrack, and try to transfer that to words.”

Thinking Writing Trying Sometimes Character Song Term Creating Theme Visuals Transfers Soundtracks Creating Characters

Author:Marisha Pessl

“The story is the only thing that's important. Everything else will take care of itself. It's like what bowlers say. You hear writers talk about character or theme or mood or mode or tense or person. But bowlers say, if you make the spares, the strikes will take care of themselves. If you can tell a story, everything else becomes possible. But without story, nothing is possible, because nobody wants to hear about your sensitive characters if there's nothing happening in the story. And the same is true with mood. Story is the only thing that's important.”

Ifs Want Writing Persons Important Character Stories Care Happenings Take Care Strikes Mood Things Happen Sensitive Theme Spares Tense Bowlers

Author:Stephen King

“After I recovered from 'Lioness', I wanted to write something about animals because I really like mythical creatures, especially dragons. At 12, I was one of those semi-recluses who did better with animals than people. Out of that, came the character, Daine, who could communicate with animals.”

People Writing Character Wanted Animal Creatures Communicate Dragons Recluse Mythical Creatures Lioness

Author:Tamora Pierce

“If I don't have a project going, I sit down and begin to write something - a character sketch, a monologue, a description of some sight, or even just a list of ideas.”

Ifs Writing Ideas Character Projects Sight Down And Lists Description Monologues

Author:Thomas Perry

“The characters you refer to as predatory and unsavory are useful. They're the ones who make a novel into a thriller. They're active, and most of the common virtues, the signs of a good person, are not.”

Writing Persons Character Common Novel Virtue Active Good Person Thrillers Predatory

Author:Thomas Perry

“What I look for in any character, good or bad, is whether I can hear him speak. If I can imagine him that clearly, then I can write about him.”

Ifs Writing Looks I Can Character Speak Imagine

Author:Thomas Perry

“I don't really distinguish between sympathy and honesty when I'm writing. The two go together - I'm interested in inhabiting my characters, seeing the world through their eyes.”

World Writing Two Character Eye Together Seeing Honesty Sympathy Seeing The World

Author:Tom Perrotta

“I'm not writing great literature. I'm writing commercial fiction for people to enjoy the stories and to like the characters.”

People Writing Character Stories Literature Enjoy Fiction Great Literature

Author:Kathy Reichs

“The movies that work are the ones in which somebody very smart figured out how to take all the thematic material, all the character material, all the filigree, all the beautiful writing, and put it into a story.”

Writing Character Stories Beautiful Materials Smart Very Smart Beautiful Writing Thematic

Author:Scott Rudin

“I love Charlie, Billy Burke's character. Writing for him is so spectacular, he's so funny and wry and every scene he's in he just takes. There's a scene in 'Eclipse' where Bella tells him she's a virgin, and it's the funniest, most awkward scene I've ever seen on film.”

Writing Character Film Scene Awkward Virgins Spectacular Charlie Eclipse Wry

Author:Melissa Rosenberg

“I think that's what I love about writing, is the ability to try to, in a sense, take a vacation from yourself and try to enter the sensibility of another time, another character, another place.”

Thinking Writing Trying Character Ability Vacation Sensibility Another Time

Author:Ron Rash

“My parents were very supportive and always encouraged us. My father was a gentle, nice man. My mother was quite a colourful character and a keen reader who encouraged me to write.”

Men Writing Character Mother Father Parent Nice Reader Gentle Supportive Colorful Nice Man

Author:Alexander McCall Smith

“When you write for a show that's not yours, your job is to hear the voices of the characters and write as best you can for those voices.”

Writing Character Shows Jobs Voice

Author:Amy Sherman-Palladino

“Fictional characters are made of words, not flesh; they do not have free will, they do not exercise volition. They are easily born, and as easily killed off.”

Writing Made Character Born Exercise Flesh Free Will Volition Fictional Character

Author:John Banville

“Being an author means, almost by definition, that you make up characters and then complicate their lives. That's it, really. You make up characters and give them problem after problem after problem.”

Giving Writing Mean Character Problem Definitions

Author:Maureen Johnson

“The core of character lies in each individual story person's ability to care about something; to feel implicitly or explicitly that something is important.”

Feels Writing Persons Important Character Stories Care Lying Individual Ability Core

Book:Creating Characters: How to Build Story People

Source: Creating Characters: How to Build Story People

“I plot as I go. Many novelists write an outline that has almost as many pages as their ultimate book. Others knock out a brief synopsis... Do what is comfortable. If you have to plot out every move your characters make, so be it. Just make sure there is a plausible purpose behind their machinations. A good reader can smell a phony plot a block away.”

Ifs Writing Book Character Moving Purpose Behinds Reader Comfortable Pages Ultimate Smell Block Novelists Plot Outlines Phony Plausible Synopsis

Author:Clive Cussler

“I feel that discussing story-writing in terms of plot, character, and theme is like trying to describe the expression on a face by saying where the eyes, nose, and mouth are.”

Feels Writing Trying Character Stories Eye Faces Term Expression Mouths Noses Theme Plot Discussing Story Writing

Book:Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

Source: Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

“You can't really write until the characters kind of show up one day and tell you what they're going to say. You start to hear the rhythm of the way the people talk, and then it becomes easier.”

People Way Writing Kind Character Shows Easier One Day Rhythm

Author:Chris Terrio

“Chairman Mao not only introduced Pinyin in China, but also simplified half the Chinese characters, believing that fewer strokes would enable more people to learn to write the characters.”

People Writing Believe Character Half China Chinese Fewer Strokes Chairman Mao Chairman Mao

Author:David Tang

“As a writer, as much as I try, I can't stop writing female characters. They have so much more to offer; they have to wear so many different hats. There's so much wonderful gray matter in a female's life that it just makes for a stronger character.”

Writing Trying I Can Different Matter Character Wonderful Offers Female Stronger Hats Gray Female Characters Gray Matter

Author:Tate Taylor

“For a writer, they say write what you know. As a performer, you find it in yourself, in your heart. You relate to the character. You try to live it, try to have it be real for you.”

Knows Writing Trying Heart Real Character Relate Performers Being Real

Author:Uma Thurman

“I was thinking about what I wanted to write next, after my first novel, and had decided that I wanted to write a story with a lot of strong female characters in it.”

Thinking Writing Firsts Character Stories Wanted Next Strong Novel Female Decided Female Characters Strong Female Characters Strong Female

Author:Joan D. Vinge

“I've always loved writing emotionally rich, character-driven novels that explore the way people fall in love and deal with life's triumphs and tragedies. I enjoy writing the contemporary and historical books equally, though perhaps 'enjoy' is the wrong word.”

People Way Writing Book Character Fall Enjoy Deals Novel Rich Tragedy Historical Falling In Love Driven Contemporary Triumph Wrong Words

Author:Susan Wiggs

“I had been a reporter for 15 years when I set out to write my first novel. I knew how to research an article or profile a subject - skills that I assumed would be useless when it came to fiction. It was from my imagination that the characters in my story would emerge.”

Writing Years Firsts Character Stories Would Be Imagination Fiction Novel Subjects Skills Research Useless Articles Reporters My Imagination Profile

Author:Amy Waldman

“Imagination, it turns out, is a great deal like reporting in your own head. Here is a paradox of fiction-writing. You are crafting something from nothing, which means, in one sense, that none of it is true. Yet in the writing, and perhaps in the reading, some of a character's actions or lines are truer than others.”

Writing Mean Character Action Turns Reading Imagination Lines Deals Fiction Paradox Fiction Writing

Author:Amy Waldman

“Character is character and voice is voice, which translates nicely from writing novels to writing TV. But the process is different. You have a writer's room, people pitch you jokes and you collaborate.”

People Writing Different Character Process Voice Rooms Novel Tvs Jokes Translate

Author:Jennifer Weiner

“Working within the limitations of the shared world generally made the writing easier, because I didn't have to invent any of the characters or background, which is usually the hardest part.”

World Writing Made Character Easier Backgrounds Hardest Limitation

Author:Walter Jon Williams

“There's just a deeper level of sophistication in the writing of female characters on TV.”

Writing Character Levels Tvs Female Deeper Female Characters Sophistication

Author:Vera Farmiga

“Everything becomes agitated. Ideas quick-march into motion like battalions of a grand army to its legendary fighting ground, and the battle rages. Memories charge in, bright flags on high; the cavalry of metaphor deploys with a magnificent gallop; the artillery of logic rushes up with clattering wagons and cartridges; on imagination's orders, sharpshooters sight and fire; forms and shapes and characters rear up; the paper is spread with ink - for the nightly labor begins and ends with torrents of this black water, as a battle opens and concludes with black powder.”

“I think you will agree that I am alive in every part of this book; turn back twenty, thirty, one hundred pages - I am back there. That is why I hate the story; characters are not snakes that they must shed their skins on every page - there can only be one action: what a man is. When you have understood this, you will be through with novels.”

Thinking Men Writing Book Character Stories Action Hate Turns Novel Alive Pages Understood Hundred Skins I Hate Twenties Agree Thirty Shed Snakes I Am Alive

Author:Kenneth Patchen

“All you need to know about plotting is twofold. 1. Give your characters goals. 2. Don't let them reach those goals.”

Knows Needs Giving Writing Character Goal

Author:J.A. Konrath

“You can teach almost anyone determined to learn them the basics required to write sentences and paragraphs that say what you want them to say clearly and concisely. It's far more difficult to get people to think like a writer, to give up conventional habits of mind and emotion. You must be able to step inside your character's skin, and at the same time to remain outside the dicey circumstances you have maneuvered her into.”

“...But I don't think I'm the only person who is tired of books and movies full of paper-doll characters you don't care about, who have no self-respect and no respect for anybody or any institution....And I don't want to sound preachy or Victorian, but I'm tired of amorality in fiction and in real life. Immorality is a fascinating human dilemma that creates suspense for the readers and tension for the characters, but where is the tension in an amoral situation? When people have no personal code, nothing is threatening and nothing is meaningful.”

“I like to write first-person because I like to become the character I'm writing.”

Writing Firsts Persons Character First Person

Author:Wally Lamb

“I love working with male actors, and I think there's a tendency to write really interesting characters that would work solely alongside men where they would be in a man's world and have to deal with that, and it creates a lot of interesting storylines. For me, it's kind of circumstantial, but I definitely enjoy it.”

Thinking Men World Writing Kind Character Would Be Actors Enjoy Interesting Deals Males Tendencies Really Interesting Interesting Characters Storyline

Author:Elisabeth Moss

“I come to writing from hearing great stories as a child in Louisiana, where the mark of a person was his or her ability to be a raconteur. I also come to writing as a professional actress whose body has been trained to listen and smell and inhabit characters without judgment.”

Writing Children Persons Has Beens Character Stories Body Ability Judgment Mark Hearing Smell Actresses Louisiana

Author:Rebecca Wells

“I used to be an editor and I was editing young adult series. I didn't really like the books that I was reading, so I decided that I would write a book about something I'd want to read if I was 16. It turned into a Cinderella story... I developed a proposal and the characters of 'Gossip Girl' for my job.”

Ifs Want Writing Book Character Stories Jobs Young Used Girl Reading Adults Decided Series Young Adult Used To Be Gossip Editors Editing Proposal Gossip Girl Cinderella Story

Author:Cecily von Ziegesar

“My biggest fear in writing 'Gossip Girl' was that the characters would sound like stereotypical rich, air-headed heiresses. These were my friends. They were smart and multifaceted. They had interests and passions. They wanted to become lawyers and doctors and writers and filmmakers.”

Writing Character Wanted Girl Passion Sound Interest Rich Air Smart My Friends Doctors Lawyer Filmmaker Gossip Biggest Fear Heiress Gossip Girl

Author:Cecily von Ziegesar

“I'm not one of these 'the characters write themselves; the story just fell out of me' kind of writers. Wish it was like that.”

Writing Kind Character Stories Wish

Author:Markus Zusak

“I didn't 'decide' to write YA, per se. But every time I thought of a story, it featured characters 15, 16, 17.”

Writing Character Stories

Author:Sara Zarr

“If you'd like to meet some fully realized characters while learning some specifics of Zimbabwe's postcolonial struggles, as I did, you're likely to come away with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction. If you're willing to settle for first-rate writing and provocative meditations on memory, corruption and loss, they are all here in abundance.”

Ifs Writing Firsts Character Feelings Memories Loss Struggle Meditation Willing Rate Corruption Settling Abundance Vague Dissatisfaction Provocative Zimbabwe Specifics

Author:Jabari Asim

“There’s an old writing rule that says ‘Don’t have two character names start with the same letter’, but I knew at the beginning that I was going to have more than 26 characters, so I was in trouble there. Ultimately it comes down to what sounds right. And I struggle with that, finding the right name for a character. If I can’t find the right name I don’t know who the character is and I can’t proceed.”

Ifs Knows Writing I Can Two Character Names Sound Struggle Trouble Findings Letters

Author:George R. R. Martin

“If you're writing about a character, if he's a powerful character, unless you give him vulnerability I don't think he'll be as interesting to the reader.”

Ifs Thinking Giving Writing Character Interesting Powerful Reader Vulnerability

Book:Stan Lee's Chakra The Invincible Free Comic Book Day Special 2015

Source: Stan Lee's Chakra The Invincible Free Comic Book Day Special 2015

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