Ravi Subramanian Quotes

I have no problems or issues with screenwriting in general.

You spend so much time writing a character the way I did with Buddy Baker and then Green Arrow that you start to care about them. And you almost think of them as people, you know?

When I'm writing fiction I'm thinking, God, this is so hard - I have to make all this stuff up! I wish I were writing a nonfiction book where all the facts are laid out and I don't have to be so much at sea.

On the one occasion where I did try writing a screenplay, I found the rewriting just unendurable.

One of the things that happens when you write characters - and maybe this is my own sentimentality - is that I always find I have an instinct to protect them.

The characters in a novel are made up, figments of the writer's imagination. I'm sure this won't come as a surprise to anyone, and it's not surprising to me either, but knowing this, feeling this, definitely made writing my second book harder.

I think writers can get too attached to these worlds they create, these characters they make real, so that, instead of ending the story where the story's asking to end, they draw it out, unable to let go.

I do not believe that with a fictional character you can force yourself too far away from yourself. There has to be some of you in it.

When you're writing for a show, you're writing part of the script. You have to tell the story.

To be honest, I have never thought about the intricacies of a script.

I definitely have the screenwriting itch.

I knew I wanted to write about a nanny, but it was difficult for me to find a narrative rhythm.

I like to let the story flesh itself out, and usually, the characters make their own decisions as things get under way. Dialogue especially seems to write itself once I'm familiar with the characters and their backgrounds.

I like to enter my characters through a physical form first. The first thing I find is the regime of the character - when he wakes up tomorrow, what activities does this person engage in - that's my entry point. Once I get that, then it becomes easy for me.

There are fragments of me in all my characters.

Adapting a book is the most difficult thing because half the time you are wondering what to remove.

The power with which you can create a character is tremendous and probably more satisfying than actually being the person.

I think my concerns are the same as every actor. Can I find this character and make it come to life properly?

I used to say I wasn't interested in writing about characters.

Really, I've worked my whole adult life at fiction, to try and write fiction.

There's a huge distance between who I am as a regular person and what takes place in my fiction.

Often what happens with the writing is that you know where you want to start and you know where you want to end, but the journey is never quite what you predict because the characters take on a life on their own.

Audiences are just like us as writers - we grow attached to characters. In certain ways you don't want them to change.

My process is kind of intuitive - I think about how a character will speak according to their station and personality, occasionally making notes with guidelines for their mannerisms, and then I just sort of crack on and write it.

As a writer, you know what the purpose of the scene is. It really has nothing to do with the actor so you have to really get out of that space because for actors it's a micro-focus and then you figure out your arc through what the writers have given you to say. But that arc is just one little piece of the huge arc of the whole film. It took a while to get out of that.