Callie Khouri Quotes

What's funny about that is when I was writing Twilight just for myself and not thinking of it as a book, I was not thinking about publishing, and yet at the same time I was casting it in my head. Because when I read books, I see them very visually.

People sometimes ask who I would cast in my books and I never have any idea. I don't think I could ever write a book thinking of it as a movie the whole time. This would be like building a house and filling it with furniture just so you could have blueprints.

As a novelist, you could say that I am dreaming while I am awake, and every day I can continue with yesterday's dream. Because it is a dream, there are so many contradictions and I have to adjust them to make the story work. But, in principle, the original dream does not change.

When I write, I get glimpses into future novels.

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 just let the character speak to me and things appear.

I very seldom, very seldom, even know what my characters look like.

Once I'm given an idea for a story I have a million ideas on how it should be illustrated, but I don't have a big shoebox full of unfinished ideas.

I find that it's really important for me to imagine characters and situations. That allows me a lot of freedom.

A lot of times characters are combinations of people I come across in life. I people-watch a lot.

I love thinking of movie stars who could play the characters in the books I write.

I work out the other bits, too, but I need to know what I look like, very early on. And then it's like a template; I'll fill that person out. If I get that out of the way, then I'm all right.

I start with a character and a situation, but I don't know what's going to happen until I write it. Sometimes things happen that surprise me.

As a storyteller, when you see somebody who is the character you envisioned, you feel this energy in the room.

I think visually... so, even when I'm writing a play, I'm envisioning it.

Characters are not created on paper or laptop alone.

On some level, every story draws something from life experiences. Most of the time, it's just a matter of me pulling bits and pieces of my own past to help give characters or settings a little more life.

I've always had a lot of story ideas rattling around in my head, but 'Nimona' felt very tangible very early. I knew the ending. So I just started making more and more pages, and then I made it a webcomic, like, 'OK, I'm really gonna do this.'

I prefer to surprise myself as I'm writing. I'm not interested in it if I already know where it's going. So I have only the most general sense of what I'm doing when I start a story. I sometimes have a destination in mind, but how the story is going to go from Point A to Point Z is something I make up as I go along.

I have every sympathy for writers. It's a mystery to me what they do. I can edit. I can cross out and say, 'I'm not saying that' or, 'How about we move this to here? Wouldn't that make that bit of the story better?' But where any of it comes from is beyond me. I will never write a play or a novel.

I don't sit down in front of my computer screen and think, 'Right. Today I shall begin a story set in this or that period of history.' I just get ideas from the world around me.

My characters are fictional. I get ideas from real people, sometimes, but my characters always exist only in my head.

After a while, the characters I'm writing begin to feel real to me. That's when I know I'm heading in the right direction.

The story I am writing exists, written in absolutely perfect fashion, some place, in the air. All I must do is find it, and copy it.

I'll often dream about characters before I start writing their stories.