Nora Roberts Quotes

I don't really base any of my characters on specific people that I know, although my characters are informed by the kind of people who live in my community.

Sometimes a character is really based on research that you do. Other times it's just based on your imagination or perhaps your conversation with the director. Or sometimes all of the above. It depends on the movie and character.

My characters are all made up of pieces of people I have known, their backstories pieces of mine.

I never base characters on real people. There are people who do that but I really don't know how to do it.

Creating characters is like throwing together ingredients for a recipe. I take characteristics I like and dislike in real people I know, or know of, and use them to embellish and define characters.

Sometimes after a compliment about my characterization skills, I'm asked if I model my characters on real people. Emphatically, no. And sort of, yes.

A lot of my characters are born out of a small grain in a person that I heighten and take to that next level. They're not based on anyone I've ever met, but they are these extreme versions of something.

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

The characters in my stories, whether historical or fictional, usually prove to be a compilation of influences taken from differing sources, but never drawn from one model.

Very few of my characters are based on people I've known. It is too constricting.

I think every character I've ever come up with has been based on someone or something I've known.

One of the things about writing fiction is that you create people that you feel, more or less, as though you know.

Creating characters is just another way to express a type and put that type to use.

I really enjoy working in genre series, because you really have to create the characters.

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

I try to talk about things I know about. But my characters are more of a combination of people or how I imagine people would feel.

What I'm really trying to do is create unique characters.

The point of my explanation is I'm very subjective when it comes to describing my characters: they are all a little bit a part of me from the outside in or the inside out - but to put your mind at ease, I built Paul Snider from the outside in.

I love creating new characters that are whatever they are.

Characters are not created on paper or laptop alone.

There is no creative process to come up with a character of Dean Ambrose.

The interesting thing about fiction from a writer's standpoint is that the characters come to life within you. And yet who are they and where are they? They seem to have as much or more vitality and complexity as the people around you.

One of the ways I think I gain fodder for characters is by watching people.

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.

To create characters, one must build background. And one of the tools we use is improvisation.