Eliza Scanlen Quotes

My work is to know the characters intimately and to tell their story.

Read good books. Read bad books - and figure out why you don't like them. Then don't do it when you write. If you are a science fiction or fantasy writer, going to conventions and attending panels is very useful.

I locate that special problem in a character and then try to understand it. That's the genesis of all my work.

What I've tended to do is to use my own experiences to get into someone else's mind, like in Wuthering Heights.

In general, my own experience of writing an adaptation of 'Evening' gave me a chance to get into different parts of the book.

I couldn't enjoy 'A Dance With Dragons,' unfortunately. Of course, I enjoyed it, but it was the first of the books I read as a writer on 'Game of Thrones,' so all I could do is think, 'We're going to have to shift that,' 'We won't be able to afford that,' or 'That's a great scene.'

I've done projects where I've read 25 books and did all kinds of journal and character work for hours.

One of my favorite parts of being an actress is being a detective.

Whenever I approach any character, I try to find examples to draw upon.

I get scripts and think, 'There's not enough here to get my teeth stuck into.' That's a result of studying English, where you luxuriate in these big, lush novels.

I talk to myself on paper about my characters - sometimes writing in first person... I keep lists of unanswered questions that I can always turn to in order to get myself going.

You can never know enough about your characters

I don't want to make fictional characters who are perfect - that's a vanilla situation - but the fact is you are allowed to more carefully select and curate what it is you're going to explore.

When I read interviews with people like Kevin Barry or Colin Barrett, who I hugely admire, they don't really seem to come up against the question of likeability even though their characters, in some instances, are really horrible.

I'm very much a word-centric writer, and that comes from the literature and the reading that I did as kid and also the films and mythology and stories.

I have a very schoolish approach to acting. I like to do my homework, know more about the character, and study it. It's all about the craft.

I write books because I have always been fascinated by stories and language, and because I love thinking about what makes people tick. Writing a story... 'The Giver' or any other... is simply an exploration of the nature of behavior: why people do what they do, how it affects others, how we change and grow, and what decisions we make along the way.

I was attempting to write the story of my life. It wasn't so much about plot. It was much more about character.

No good book has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stuck in. ... I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things

I have never gone into a picture without first studying my characterization from all angles. I make a study of the fellow's life and try to learn everything about him, including the conditions under which he came into this world, his parentage, his environment, his social status, and the things in which he is interested. Then I attempt to get his mental attitude as much as possible.

Mark Twain didn't psychoanalyze Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer. Dickens didn't put Oliver Twist on the couch because he was hungry! Good copy comes out of people, Johnny, not out of a lot of explanatory medical terms.

Chris Claremont once said of Alan Moore, "if he could plot, we'd all have to get together and kill him." Which utterly misses the most compelling part of Alan's writing, the way he develops and expresses ideas and character. Plot does not define story. Plot is the framework within which ideas are explored and personalities and relationships are unfolded.

The formula for creative writing in high school or college is write what you know. And I said they don't know nothing. Imagine something. Do you know what it's like to be a Madame in Paris, when you're too old to have any clients. No, you don't. I don't either. Write about it.

I don't think I'm more of a screenwriter than I am a fiction writer. I'm more of a reader than a film-watcher, so I imagine that I'm not approaching fiction or films in a particularly cinematic way.

I think I write what's interesting to me, and so if I'm reading I like to have a very thorough idea of a character in a book that's by someone else.