Dylan Sprouse Quotes

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.

When you're writing a book, with people in it as opposed to animals, it is no good having people who are ordinary, because they are not going to interest your readers at all. Every writer in the world has to use the characters that have something interesting about them, and this is even more true in children's books.

There's a bizarre insistence on how a story should be. 'The protagonist must be sympathetic!' they say. Whatever that means. I never engage in that discussion. I never use that word, 'sympathetic.' I just know 'interesting.'

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 create characters that I am fascinated by on some level or intrigued by or can't stand.

I always look for interesting, complex characters. You know, interesting, well-written material.

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

This may sound strange, but although I feel like I know everything about my characters, the brand of shampoo they use, how many cavities they have, their greatest fear, I don't actually see their faces.

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

Look at the Coen brothers. All their minor characters are as interesting as their protagonists. If the smaller characters are well-written, the whole world of the film becomes enriched. It's not the size of the thing, but the detail.

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.

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.

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 goal is to have every character take on a life of his or her own. Sometimes characters will come into the story that I haven't planned.

What helps writers, and ultimately, obviously, helps the actors - who should serve the words that the writer puts on the page - is if the character has damages, because then the writers can cultivate and excavate, like a dentist going into a tooth.

I try to begin with a strong grasp of my characters. Even if it's schematic, I need it clear in my head who these people are.

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

A character who is thought-out is not born, he or she is contrived. A born character is round, a thought-out character is flat.

I like to take a character and develop it.

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

I have a cheat-sheet for each one of my characters about their personality, the way they look, etc. So there is no possible way that I could have writer's block.

I'm about my characters.