Allison Scagliotti Quotes

A lot of entertainment, and especially in a half-hour format, can be all jokes, all the time. And some of those jokes can be really, really funny, but what I respond to, as a viewers, is identification or caring about the characters.

What makes an audience watch something and care about the characters is the emotional life of the characters.

One of the things that separates a good genre movie from a bad genre movie, I always think, ironically, is when you care about the people. The dime a dozen ones are where you don't have any awareness of the character.

People like the comedy more when they care about the characters.

I am a firm believer that a good plot makes for a fun enough read, but it's not what binds us. If we don't care about the characters, we won't care - not in a lasting way - about what's happening to them.

In 'The Prophet' I really fell in love with those characters, there was an emotional connection there that I don't think I've had in a while. It made me think it would be nice to stick with the characters for a little bit and see what happens.

I can tell you that as a writer and as a reader, I regard character as king. Or queen. No matter how riveting the action or interesting the plot twists, if I don't feel like I'm meeting someone who feels real, I'm not going to be compelled to read further.

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

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.

I don't really like simple characters too much; it's too easy. I like a challenge, and I like characters you connect with on screen.

If you have great characters, then your reader becomes emotionally invested in those people.

You have to have somebody to root for. I truly believe that's how you ground a movie. You ground them in the characters.

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.

'Star Trek' was always a little bit closed emotionally. I never connected to the characters.

I have to have a character worth caring about. I tend not to start writing books about people I don't have a lot of sympathy for because I'm just going to be with them too long.

I just want to keep finding special characters that I feel like I can bring to life and characters that are real and not superficial.

There are characters that become more popular as we fall in love with them.

There's a bizarre insistence on how a story should be. 'The protagonist must be sympathetic!' they say. Whatever that means. I never engage in that discussion. I never use that word, 'sympathetic.' I just know 'interesting.'

I think it is important that you care about the characters, and you are not just waiting for the next action sequence but have a vested interested in what happens to them.

If a movie has more characters than an audience can keep track of, the audience will get confused and lose interest in the story.

I'm sorry, but to ask an audience these days to invest three hours in a show requires your heroine be an understandable and fully rounded character.

I don't worry about whether a character is likable, as long as the character is believable.

It's really important to stay engaged and involved in the character.

The more conflict and contrast you have with a character makes it more interesting.

Everyone likes a bit of variety. I'm sure none of my readers only want to read about anti-heroes or villainous protagonists any more than they only want to read about square-jawed heroes doing the right thing. I just write characters than entertain me and hope they'll be ones that other people want to read about, too.