Martha Wells Quotes

As a writer, as much as I try, I can't stop writing female characters. They have so much more to offer; they have to wear so many different hats. There's so much wonderful gray matter in a female's life that it just makes for a stronger character.

I always look for interesting, complex characters. You know, interesting, well-written material.

I think my best quality as a writer is the ability to craft complicated, nuanced, interesting characters.

The thing with videogame characters is that they tend to be really undercooked, and people don't take the time to really flesh them out. They don't treat them with the respect that a writer writing characters in any other medium would treat their character.

Why is every great children's story about a journey? Maybe that's because we are always on one.

I think difficult characters are very rewarding to do. They often have facets to them and this and that.

I love to start characters in a place where you think you know them. We can make all kinds of assumptions about them and think they have no redeeming qualities, but like everyone, they're complex.

Quite honestly, I think that if you are making a lot of television programs with a central character, then ultimately it can become boring if you know nothing about them. I personally want to know, or get to know, things about a character. It doesn't mean to say that they still can't have a certain mystery about them.

I have a thing for working with wounded characters.

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.

When you're reading, like, a character's thoughts, or when it's in first person, you're reading kind of their own story, so you have the opportunity to see what makes that character complex or complicated. And to me, that's what the whole point of fiction is.

I'm attracted to playing characters that have flaws.

In the best works of fiction, there's no mustache-twirling villain. I try to write shows where even the bad guy's got his reasons.

The most I could hope for is to come and try and develop a character who is interesting, who is interesting to me, who is interesting to fans and who could contribute to the storytelling that is 'Law & Order: SVU.'

What helps writers, and ultimately, obviously, helps the actors - who should serve the words that the writer puts on the page - is if the character has damages, because then the writers can cultivate and excavate, like a dentist going into a tooth.

I don't write for theme, but if you work closely on some guy fixing a sandwich or a window or a table or trying to visit an old teacher or walking down the street on which he was a boy, a theme, a human hope, will emerge.

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

With a lot of comedies, the characters go on a journey, and they come back, and they're the exact same people.

As for dream roles, they usually just speak to you. I just crave complex characters.

You really have to create everything in order to come away with a full human being on screen.

I like complicated characters.

I wanted more in depth ideas about the character and it never came.

There are so few shows that are willing to take risks with their characters in the way that 'Homeland' does. And yet, the audience still comes back and loves those characters.

I like shows that are ensemble-based, that explore the humanity of every character.

What I always studied in screenwriting from my mentor John Glavin was that the most interesting characters are characters with shades of gray.