Dexter Fletcher Quotes

Plot and character are virtually the same thing.

I used to get stuck trying to find the first sentence of a story, then I realised that it was often because I didn't know what problem a character was facing in the story. As soon as I did, I could have the character trying to do something about it or have the problem whack him between the eyes.

Coming from TV and film, rule number one is that you always service the main character first and foremost. If that's not working, you've got nothing.

For me, plot always comes out of character, so I had to be sure of my characters.

A novel is utterly your own creation, a very private process. I think of a novel as a noun and a screenplay as a verb. In a novel, very little needs to happen; you can explore a person's memories and thoughts and fantasies. In a screenplay, it's all action; you must push the story on.

I'm more interested in character than events. I've observed that about myself as a writer. I find events, even the most dramatic sort, not to be such fertile ground.

In the writers' room, when we talk about each episode, we first talk about the character journey of the episode.

When the characters are really alive before their author, the latter does nothing but follow them in their action, in their words, in the situations which they suggest to him.

I definitely feel that plot flows from character. I don't believe that you can construct a plot and insert people into it.

It's rare that I actually have a story in my head. I have events or 'what's the next move?' Like, Maggie, 'where's she going to go in this story, where's she going to end up?' Then the story has to fill in the in-between, and that comes as I'm starting it.

I think it is important that you care about the characters, and you are not just waiting for the next action sequence but have a vested interested in what happens to them.

Characters are incredibly important, but I tend to build them around the plot during the outline stage. However, once I'm writing the manuscript, the characters I'm writing dictate how the plot unfolds.

I try to trace the connection between the characters and that way a story or plot emerges.

For me, screenwriting is all about setting characters in motion and as a writer just chasing them. They should tell you what they'll do in any scene you put them in.

For me as a storyteller, I want to follow the characters and the story through what they organically demand.

I don't plot my novels - I move along with my characters.

Although when I start a novel I know how it will begin and end, I like to let the people within the story take me on a journey between those points without having a fixed plan.

I try mainly to just focus on character and what my character's point of view is, with each person, and try to figure out story.

I've dropped myself into straightforward character pieces in order to explore that form and reap its values. But you are sort of restricted visually when your first requirement is to tell a fairly straightforward story.

The story is always in service to the characters, and is only as long or short, or neat or ragged as it needs to be.

This basic thing I always do: 'What happened between the character's birth, and page one of the script?' Anything that's not in the story, I'll fill in the blanks.

So I work hard to present the human side of my characters while not neglecting the plot.

I'll generally write out every scene that's in the film on a couple of pieces of paper, just with a little one-line. And then I can scan it a bit and go, 'This first third of the film, generally, I'm kind of calm.' Then I might do something on one piece of paper that just relates to the energy of the character.

Characters develop as the book progresses, but any that start to bore me end up in the wastepaper basket. In real life, we may have to put up with tedious people, but not in novels.

It's all just one film to me. Just different chapters.