Amitava Kumar Quotes

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 like to take a character and develop it.

In creative writing, I teach that characters arise out of our need for them.

Characters are not created on paper or laptop alone.

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.

In the writing process, the more a story cooks, the better.

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.

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.

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 put a lot of myself into my characters when I write.

One of the things about writing fiction is that you create people that you feel, more or less, as though you know.

I really enjoy working in genre series, because you really have to create the characters.

I write a ridiculous number of drafts. The characters change and grow through the drafting, and my understanding of them deepens. Creating characters in a novel is like shooting at clay pigeons and missing, and then missing more productively as the narrative continues.

When I develop a character, I usually start by creating a backstory with whatever information I have access to.

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

You establish a technique on how to develop characters. Everyone does it their own way, and that's what makes it fun.

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

When I write a book, characters come to life for me somewhere at the back of my head. I strive to make them flesh and blood in an abstract way, in words.

I admit I do develop characters from little parts of things I've seen others do.

A new character is like bringing a new human being into your life.

I love all the characters I write.

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

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.

You spend so much time writing a character the way I did with Buddy Baker and then Green Arrow that you start to care about them. And you almost think of them as people, you know?