David E. Kelley Quotes

My characters live inside my head for a long time before I actually start a book about them. Then, they become so real to me I talk about them at the dinner table as if they are real. Some people consider this weird. But my family understands.

Characters are not created on paper or laptop alone.

Writers often say that characters begin to write themselves, and I never used to believe that. I always thought that was complete hogwash.

It's usually easier for me to begin writing in a character's voice if that person is different from me in some significant way.

It's hard to know whether certain characters come to life or not, they either come to have their own life or they don't. I've written many things in which the characters just remain inert.

As a writer, I always think about who my prototype actors are, in my brain. It's helpful, as a writer, to think about that.

I love making characters real and believable, through my own experience and choices.

I think every character I've ever come up with has been based on someone or something I've known.

I have a huge emotional attachment to characters I've created, especially the viewpoint characters.

When you're writing fiction, you're in every character 'cause you can't help it.

I like to write characters that feel like people that I would know.

There's some of me in all my characters.

I love all the characters I write.

There are fragments of me in all my characters.

I don't ever really know where I get my characters from.

How I work is I work from of very character-driven place. And I trust the writers.

I love... What's gratifying to me is when you make/create a character and a human being, a person who lives entirely and who has their own existence, just merely from the words on a page.

One of the ways I think I gain fodder for characters is by watching people.

I always believed in my characters. I lived them.

Sometimes a character is really based on research that you do. Other times it's just based on your imagination or perhaps your conversation with the director. Or sometimes all of the above. It depends on the movie and character.

I suppose it's possible that a writer would have feeling for his characters, but I can't see how, because writing is such a meticulous, intricate, technical business. I wish I could say that I love my characters and that frequently they take over the book and run away with the plot and so on. But they don't exist.

When you write, you hear the characters speaking to you as you take dictation from what they say. And obviously, they had particular personalities when you hear them.

Whichever character I'm using and wherever I am in my mind dictates what kind of story I'm going to tell.

The great thing about writing is that you always put yourself in the shoes of the character. If you're doing it right, you can see into the heart of all your characters. Usually, when there's a writing problem, it's because you aren't doing that.

You need to know the characters as living, breathing people before you start the plot; otherwise, you'll feel panic, anarchy and chaos.