Patrick deWitt Quotes

Developing characters is a strange thing. In the beginning they are abstract and I wonder how to move on from there.

When you create a character, you create it for yourself - you do whatever you want. It's your job to explore it in as many different avenues as you can in order to make it a fully wounded character.

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

It's nice to create a character, not just within two scenes, but within the journey of a whole movie. It's fun to do that.

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

I tend to come up with people more than situations - most of my books start with a character.

When I create a character, it happens in layers. The more I write and revise, the better I understand the characters.

I wanted more in depth ideas about the character and it never came.

I like to take a character and develop it.

You always have to create the character from the ground up.

I don't use recurring characters. I do get very interested in my characters while I'm working with them, and I find the process of fitting them into a story, and allowing them to create the story around themselves, fascinating. But no, I don't imagine they have a life outside of what I make for them.

What I'm really trying to do is create unique characters.

You have to start from a place of trying to create a character.

When I'm breaking in a character like Jessica Jones, I have this amazing opportunity to create her backstory. It's all of the work that happens before I'm ever on camera... Writing 'Bonfire' was like doing all of that fun stuff; it was like 300 pages of prep work.

Stories are important, but I'm really into characters, and if you can give birth to a good one, that's true success.

Whenever you have a role where you don't get to know anything about the character, you have to invent it yourself. You have to feel like it came from somewhere.

I honestly feel it is important for a director to get obsessed with the characters.

There is nothing like being able to develop a three-dimensional character over a long period of time. Sometimes you aren't able to fully portray a character because you only have a couple of scenes to do it in, and you don't get the full life and background of that character.

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

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?'

For every book that I write... I develop a history for each person and make sure they are well rounded and flawed. You have to know everything about them from their shoe size, to where they went to school, to what their first pet was, to what they like to eat, to what they want out of life.

The main characters for 'The Seer and the Sword' made an appearance one night and then haunted me for over five years before I began to write them down. Does that count as inspiration? For me, characters tend to show up, stay on to help with the work of writing their stories, and then occasionally deign to visit after a book is finished.

Every single film I've done, it's about the character.

Creating characters is like throwing together ingredients for a recipe. I take characteristics I like and dislike in real people I know, or know of, and use them to embellish and define characters.

The most I could hope for is to come and try and develop a character who is interesting, who is interesting to me, who is interesting to fans and who could contribute to the storytelling that is 'Law & Order: SVU.'