Alexandra Adornetto Quotes

Any author of fiction will tell you that characters don't need to be told what to do.

I definitely have character arcs in mind for each character unless I kill them.

Once you have your characters, they tell you what to write, you don't tell them.

I take little bits and pieces of ideas that I may or may not believe in but I give them to this character and he runs with them. I have fun with however he handles the situation.

An author's characters do what he wants them to do.

I never try to give a message in my books. It's about living with characters long enough to hear their voices and let them tell me the story. Sometimes I would love to have a happy ending, and it doesn't happen because the character or the story leads me in another direction.

In a way, the characters often do take over.

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

I try to begin with a strong grasp of my characters. Even if it's schematic, I need it clear in my head who these people are.

I've got to write about my character every day. I've got to find out where he lives, what bus he catches to school, and stuff like that. You've got to know every little thing about him so when you do it, it feels natural.

I'm about my characters.

For me, plot always comes out of character, so I had to be sure of my characters.

When you create a character, you create it for yourself - you do whatever you want. It's your job to explore it in as many different avenues as you can in order to make it a fully wounded character.

There are times that you have a plot in your head, but then you find that the characters don't want to do that. When you're looking at the story from the outside, you can create whatever twists and turns you want. But when you're writing, you're inside the characters' heads, and you see that they may be motivated to do something different.

My characters aren't chess pieces. I don't move them around some big board. I actually care about these fictitious people.

Unlike life, you've got more or less complete control over what's going on in your stories. That's not to say you can make characters do whatever you want them to - they usually have a life of their own if you've done your job properly.

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

If I'm practicing making up what the characters will do, it's never good. In fact, when I catch myself doing that, I try to get rid of that section, and try and let them start making the decisions.

You can't take a character anywhere they don't expect the character to go. But within those confines is where creativity lies.

I know all actors are different, but I've never sat down and asked the writers, 'Where are we headed? Am I good or bad?'

You've got to leave the reader with more than just a name and a costume - they need to know who the character is, what they're like, what kind of attitude they have, what sort of role they play.

I usually start with a repulsive character and go on from there.

The moment comes when a character does or says something you hadn't thought about. At that moment he's alive and you leave it to him.

For every book that I write... I develop a history for each person and make sure they are well rounded and flawed. You have to know everything about them from their shoe size, to where they went to school, to what their first pet was, to what they like to eat, to what they want out of life.

Even in horror novels where you know most characters aren't going to make it to the end, it's crucial to have fully fleshed-out characters. If you don't do that, the reader doesn't care what happens to them.