Cornelia Funke Quotes

But there's the paradox of fiction - why do you cry when a fake character dies? It's the basis of art. You engage with people who don't exist and care about them as you would your friends and relatives.

What's the difference between Hollywood characters and my characters? Mine are real.

I can only try to keep the characters interesting; it's up to the readers to decide whether they're still relevant.

I always talk about my characters like they're real people.

I've found I can plunge the characters into whatever absurd, awful situation, and readers will follow as long as the writer makes them seem like 'real people.'

If we get caught up in a story, it's because we've started to care about the characters, and that can only happen if we've moved beneath the surface.

If a movie is really working, you forget for two hours your Social Security number and where your car is parked. You are having a vicarious experience. You are identifying, in one way or another, with the people on the screen.

What makes characters real are details, and if you're crafting a person from scratch, you're probably not going to pay as much attention to a question like, 'Does this person bite their nails?'

As a writer, you have to realize that people want to like the characters, so you have to be careful to keep them involved.

I just want to tell a good story, so I always ask myself, 'Are these people real to me?'

I don't like the idea the viewer can kind of sit there and go, 'Make me like this person.' People aren't inherently sympathetic.

Theater is a space where you cross over from everyday life, because there are real people in that moment moving in front of you - you're being invited to believe in a story and cross that bridge.

To make a book convincing, it's less important that the right tree be in the right place than that the characters are emotionally real.

All I can guess is that when I write, I forget that it's not real. I'm living the story, and I think people can read that sincerity about the characters. They are real to me while I'm writing them, and I think that makes them real to the readers as well.

We willingly enter fictional worlds where we cheer our heroes and cry for friends we never had.

You need the audience to become invested in the characters and in order to become invested, they need to identify with the characters... and that's why the characters need to be real.

In terms of the parallels, I've never related less to a character than Riggan.

I know when I go and see a writer, the first thing I think to myself is, 'Are they the character in the book?' You just can't help it; it's the way people are.

You can't make the audience fall in love with a character you don't like.

I think, when I write, one of the things that I'm really attempting to do is I'm attempting to humanize my characters.

My characters are always utterly sympathetic to me, if that makes any sense.

I think, ultimately, if you create characters that people like and can relate to, your characters are grounded on a human level even if your cars are not.

Certain characters get to me and stay with me for a while.

If the reader doesn't care or relate to the characters, all that visual spectacle is pretty but feels empty.

What I need, as a reader, is a character with a heart and a voice and a pulse. I need a character so vivid and so specific that she doesn't feel like fiction.