Lea Michele Quotes

As a writer, you understand how hard it is to build up backstory for characters, so you can have impactful moments. You have to build toward something and then pay it off.

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.

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.

Don't start writing your novel until you know your characters very, very well. What they'd do if they saw somebody shoplifting. What they were like at school. What shoes they wear. Spend days - weeks, months - being them until they thicken up and start to breathe.

Every single film I've done, it's about the character.

I tend to come up with people more than situations - most of my books start with a character.

'Longmire' is more of a show about the characters, and you couldn't pay a bigger compliment than to want to know more about my character, or the characters on the show.

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

You just play what a writer writes, in terms of what a character chooses to do and how a character chooses to deal with their various relationships.

I love those preliminary conversations about who a character is. You try on wigs, shoes and clothes. It's preferable when it's not about looking pretty. It can get a little dull to just be cute. We talk about things like, maybe my character can't afford these Christian Louboutins.

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.

For every character, I think about who they are, their story, what they are, and who they were before their game started. What was their life like? Where did they grow up? What were their parents like?

My favorite part about working in theater is the rehearsal process. I absolutely love the rehearsal process. Working out the characters, figuring the character out, and the relationships between the different characters. I love all of that, which, unfortunately in film, you get very little opportunity to have.

I, as a fan of numerous TV shows and movies, know that people mess up. The characters that we love are not always going to act in the ways that we want them to. That's what makes them interesting.

I try to create characters that I am fascinated by on some level or intrigued by or can't stand.

Characters are so important to a story that they actually decide where the story is going. When I write, I know my characters. I know how things are going to end, and I know some important incidents along the way.

I have a cheat-sheet for each one of my characters about their personality, the way they look, etc. So there is no possible way that I could have writer's block.

I'm about my characters.

Given what I do to my characters, I'm not sure I'd want to meet any of them.

Don't set pen to paper until you know your main characters inside out. Create files detailing their appearances, likes, dislikes, and personal background. You may not use all the information, but it is a crucial step in planning your story.

The work that I do with all of my characters is have some sense of where they come from. I kind of create my own story for myself. What's going on with my parents? Are they alive? Or family - do I have children? Do you see those things or not?

You're living with these characters for years and years, you need to have a lock on who they are as people, what they like, what they don't like, what they experience, and what they go through.

Plot is just not my gift. I'm fascinated with complex characters, and that doesn't mix well with complex plots. And by the way, when the plot is simple, you can move one piece around and make it feel fresh. Hell or High Water's a good example: I don't tell you why the brothers are robbing the bank.

When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.

All fiction is about people, unless it's about rabbits pretending to be people. It's all essentially characters in action, which means characters moving through time and changes taking place, and that's what we call 'the plot'.