Walter Dean Myers Quotes

I tend to come up with people more than situations - most of my books start with a character.

You've got to leave the reader with more than just a name and a costume - they need to know who the character is, what they're like, what kind of attitude they have, what sort of role they play.

Any author of fiction will tell you that characters don't need to be told what to do.

I try to begin with a strong grasp of my characters. Even if it's schematic, I need it clear in my head who these people are.

I have a cheat-sheet for each one of my characters about their personality, the way they look, etc. So there is no possible way that I could have writer's block.

For me, plot always comes out of character, so I had to be sure of my characters.

I want to give every single character the dimensions and complexity of a main character.

Don't start writing your novel until you know your characters very, very well. What they'd do if they saw somebody shoplifting. What they were like at school. What shoes they wear. Spend days - weeks, months - being them until they thicken up and start to breathe.

Every single film I've done, it's about the character.

You have to create characters - certainly in series TV - who people engage with. They don't have to be nice; you don't have to agree with them. But they do have to be compulsively watchable and believable and human, and you want to know what happens to them.

When you're building a character, or at least when I'm building a character, you start saying, 'How am I going to make people like him?'

When I develop a character, I usually start by creating a backstory with whatever information I have access to.

I'm about my characters.

Developing characters is a strange thing. In the beginning they are abstract and I wonder how to move on from there.

Usually when I'm trying to establish character, I try and find out where they live.

Don't set pen to paper until you know your main characters inside out. Create files detailing their appearances, likes, dislikes, and personal background. You may not use all the information, but it is a crucial step in planning your story.

There are always different roles and questions to be asked about certain characters.

I make notebooks for characters, and it kind of becomes a bible.

In creating a new character, it's sometimes difficult to find a touchstone, a North Star that will always point you in the direction that character will travel.

I honestly feel it is important for a director to get obsessed with the characters.

For 'The Bestseller'... there was hardly any research, but I had to give each person a quirk and develop their stories so that it would relate to who they are.

You're living with these characters for years and years, you need to have a lock on who they are as people, what they like, what they don't like, what they experience, and what they go through.

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.

It's always interesting researching characters and as I get older and the more that I work in this business, I do more and more of it because I realize how important it is.

As actors, you don't actually need to know the future of the character. You just need to know the backgrounds.