Amelia Atwater-Rhodes Quotes

I don't ever really know where I get my characters from.

Stories come to me and I don't know where they come from, but afterwards I can look back and say, 'Oh yes, that's got a little bit of me, or a little bit of my own son in it'. That's where ideas come from.

I cannot live or write without music. It stimulates the normally dormant parts of my brain that come in handy when constructing fiction.

When you write, you hear the characters speaking to you as you take dictation from what they say. And obviously, they had particular personalities when you hear them.

Whichever character I'm using and wherever I am in my mind dictates what kind of story I'm going to tell.

I never have particular actors planned when I'm in the process of writing.

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.

In my head, at least, the business of spinning stories has no closing time. Twists in my characters' lives, glimpses of their secrets, obstacles to their dreams... all arrive unbidden when I'm getting cash at the ATM, walking my son to camp, singing a hymn at a wedding.

Where story comes from, I don't know. I know that I become obsessed with something. An idea, an image, a person, the way a person talks. And then something starts happening that I can't explain, and it has a lot to do with language.

Most of the time, when I'm writing, I'm writing for myself. I'm thinking, 'What will my character say at this time? What will come out of her mouth?' I create individuals so real to me, I sometimes start talking to them. Then I let them loose on the page.

When I write a book, characters come to life for me somewhere at the back of my head. I strive to make them flesh and blood in an abstract way, in words.

You can start imagining all kinds of things characters would feel, but you have to have a sense of whether those imaginings might be right.

Characters are not created on paper or laptop alone.

My stories run up and bite me on the leg - I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.

Writers often say that characters begin to write themselves, and I never used to believe that. I always thought that was complete hogwash.

You can't wait for someone to give you a show. That can't be the first time you're writing and drawing a character.

My writing process often begins with a question. I write down ideas and let them stew for about a year. Then, when I sit down to write, I make a list of characters and try to see how they fit.

I wrote 'Ava Wrestles the Alligator' when I was 22 or 23. These people and that world have been evolving in me for a while. It's such a shift not to be in that world.

I'm a novelist, so I can't write about ideas unless they're attached to people.

When I'm creating characters, I definitely think of theme songs. Writing for me is very visual, so I sometimes think of it in terms of a movie with a soundtrack, and try to transfer that to words.

It's usually easier for me to begin writing in a character's voice if that person is different from me in some significant way.

I am not an analytical writer. Once I flesh out my characters and decide on the elements of my plot, the story unfolds in my head almost as though it was a movie reel.

How I work is I work from of very character-driven place. And I trust the writers.

I always believed in my characters. I lived them.