Paul Greengrass Quotes

I love storytelling. I love characters that are complicated and layered, real people, that you see why they do what they do.

Every character comes with its own challenges.

I like having a plot; I like characters with a reason to get up in the morning.

All fiction is about people, unless it's about rabbits pretending to be people. It's all essentially characters in action, which means characters moving through time and changes taking place, and that's what we call 'the plot'.

Whether you're writing a horror show or a James Bond film, I think what bubbles beneath is interesting characterization. The colors that emerge through storytelling is what a dramatist does. There's always got to be something bubbling underneath that will erupt at some point.

The characters are always the focal point of a book for me, whether I'm writing or reading. I may enjoy a book that has an intriguing mystery or a good plot, but to become one of my real favorites, it has to have great characters.

When you're crafting a character, it's good to have a lot of influences.

There are a lot of techniques for developing a character.

To create a fully formed character full of life, struggle, and humanity is tough.

With any role I play, I find out what the human problem is first.

It was always about the story rather than the character.

I mean, can I really create a full, three-dimensional character? I don't know anymore. I'm certainly going to try.

The thing with videogame characters is that they tend to be really undercooked, and people don't take the time to really flesh them out. They don't treat them with the respect that a writer writing characters in any other medium would treat their character.

When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.

What makes characters real are details, and if you're crafting a person from scratch, you're probably not going to pay as much attention to a question like, 'Does this person bite their nails?'

Once you've established where you are, you go to the character and elaborate on expressions and action.

I'm all about the story. If I like the character and I think the story's entertaining, I'll do it.

Character development is conflict.

The head writer loves that my character is a boor.

The most important aspect of any story, to me, is character.

I try to stay away from stuff that's just action, action, action, action, action, and you kind of fast-forward through the dialogue scenes. I'm not interested in doing that. Give me a reason to fight, and I'll go there. But don't just make it, 'You touched my pen! Haaa-yah!' I've done that before.

You've got to leave the reader with more than just a name and a costume - they need to know who the character is, what they're like, what kind of attitude they have, what sort of role they play.

I usually start with a repulsive character and go on from there.

To create characters, one must build background. And one of the tools we use is improvisation.

The analysis of character is the highest human entertainment.