Ruth Rendell Quotes

I don't know quite how a story develops in my head. It is a bit chaotic. If I am working on a series, one of the main characters at least is already in existence as well as some setting and minor characters. Finding the other main character can be a challenge. Sometimes this character already exists in a minor role in another book.

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've been telling anybody who would listen that I wanted to do a series for the last 10 years. But I wouldn't do it if I was just another cop pushing bad guys up against the wall.

One pleasure of working on a trilogy is watching characters warp and grow over time.

I make a rod for my own back because people see my novels as quasi documentaries. But it is never history that's the main event of my books. It's my characters.

I always say I write my own novels and the characters don't take control of me, but in fact, I look at the characters in the early stages and I think, 'What is he or she like,' and they slowly come together and they become the person they are.

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.

In the old days, I just could not leave characters alone. Now I just try to keep the ones that still have something in the way of stories to tell.

I rarely return to characters. My characters, at least most of them, are much more a part of that superorganism that is the story than separate and independent creatures.

After a while, the character sort of took over.

I find it very hard to sit down and create an idea or especially a new character on command. Usually my characters evolve by accident out of some story context.

I love to see how a character unfolds off the page in a project. I don't always know how the character is going to turn out, even with the script being there. It's not always clear where that character is going to take me. Or where I will take them.

I think the idea of creating a character from scratch, one that has not been done in a novel or an existing story, is immensely exciting, terrifying and ultimately rewarding.

I like to stay within the context of the character's background. If he's a cop, I have to make sure the audience is convinced that this person, a cop, can do only so much without a gun.

In a way, the characters often do take over.

The characters do have a life of their own; it's weird.

The thing about the 'Melrose' novels is that I have to feel they're impossible when I set out.

When I get an idea for a book, something appeals to me, it's usually a character. I'll see a picture of a female marshal in front of the courthouse in Miami and she's got a shotgun on her hip and it goes up on an angle. And she's good-looking. And I say, 'I've got to use her.'

Sure, I'll have characters drop in and out of books but the main cast of characters always changes. Maybe I'm wrong but I think if had the same joe detective guy or gal, I wouldn't write them as well; I wouldn't do as good a job.

I like to take a character and develop it.

I've always been a big fan of 'Law & Order: SVU.' I think Mariska Hargitay and Chris Meloni are just incredible.

Filmmaking is always sort of building a mosaic of this arc of what the character is going through.

The lesson of 'CSI' is: No matter what horrible things happen, nice policemen will turn up and fix everything and return it to the status quo.

You can't beat a cop drama. That's what everybody seems to want to watch.

I used to watch dailies and felt I had to keep on top of the character, but I don't feel that any more.