Chris Terrio Quotes

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.

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

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

Most of the time, when I'm writing, I'm writing for myself. I'm thinking, 'What will my character say at this time? What will come out of her mouth?' I create individuals so real to me, I sometimes start talking to them. Then I let them loose on the page.

I enjoy the writing process and producing; I enjoy seeing an idea come to fruition. I'm driven by very complex characters. You look at the pilot of 'Breaking Bad,' where there's so much depth to the character, you can't help but be invested when you watch.

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.

Especially when I write, I want to get out of people's heads and have them speak and have them get dressed and have them go to work.

What I look for in any character, good or bad, is whether I can hear him speak. If I can imagine him that clearly, then I can write about him.

Something people say about acting is that acting is listening. But I think that writing is listening, too. That you really have to listen to what are they saying and what they're communicating to you. And so, a lot of it is just getting stuff down.

Usually, when I write a novel, it takes me about 100 pages to figure out the voice of the narrator.

I love all the characters I write.

Often what happens with the writing is that you know where you want to start and you know where you want to end, but the journey is never quite what you predict because the characters take on a life on their own.

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

As an author you hope your characters have sparks but truly in the end they have minds of their own!

I'm a novelist, so I can't write about ideas unless they're attached to people.

For me, the dialogue is the easiest part of writing. It just always seems so obvious what a character will say. Maybe it's because I talk too much!

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.

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

I find it an easy way into writing pieces is to think what the character's voice is like, and start from there.

All the writing elements are the same. You need to tell a good story... You've got good characters... People think there's some dramatic difference between writing 'Little Bear' and the 'Hunger Games,' and as a writer, for me, there isn't.

I love writing letters. In order to write a novel in first person, I think I needed an addressee.

At the end of the day, it's really, really difficult to make a brand-new show, to write a pilot where you have to introduce characters and everyone has to kind of be dynamic and have something different for themselves.

When I wrote for TV, I was always thinking in terms of character and story. After fifteen years, it became hard-wired in me.

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.

I never have particular actors planned when I'm in the process of writing.