Jonathan Majors Quotes

I'm a strange kind of author - I like assignments. I wasn't clever enough to invent an iconic figure like Salander, but she's my kind of girl.

I'll tell you the secret. When you begin with a character, you want to begin by creating a villain.

The trick to making a story matter is that every now and then, somebody you care about has to go. If it's somebody that you don't care about, then it doesn't really have - the stakes aren't there. But if you do that every now and then, then the story matters to people. And there are actual stakes involved, emotional stakes.

Coming from TV and film, rule number one is that you always service the main character first and foremost. If that's not working, you've got nothing.

Characters are the key to a good book. It took me several novels to comprehend that.

Stories matter to me. I look for a good script, story, and a strong part.

Unlike life, you've got more or less complete control over what's going on in your stories. That's not to say you can make characters do whatever you want them to - they usually have a life of their own if you've done your job properly.

I usually give a book 40 pages. If it doesn't grab me by then, adios. With young adult books, you can usually tell by Page 4 if it's worth the time. The author establishes the conflict early, sometimes in the first sentence. The themes of hope, family, friendship and overcoming hardship appeal to most everyone.

I have always argued, in a good novel, interesting things happen to interesting people.

A subplot is a distinguishing characteristic of the novel; the short story, for example, does not need subplots.

This is the story, this is your character, I have the sense of the landscape, I have the sense of the scene, I have all that stuff. But I'm also looking for something else to happen, an accident or something. You're focused on the story you intend to tell and then you have to have a peripheral net out to catch these accidents.

Characters who are on screen from start to finish are not necessarily the ones who have the greatest impact.

I prefer to bring these to the service of story rather than to let them replace narrative.

I tend to spend a lot of time building characters that the reader will believe in and sympathize with.

As a novelist, I'm endlessly fascinated by human behavior and interactions.

A friend of mine who is in the publishing business knew I was writing a book, and he said, 'Have you said anything yet about the good guy? Because I know you spend so much time with the bad guys.' Because they're fun. So then you have to make the good guy fun, in order to compete. That's the challenge.

If you know exactly what your character knows, it's a drama.

I tend not to know what the plot is or the story is or even the theme. Those things come later, for me.

But he did say that the character would be on the sidelines in movies One and Two, and move into the middle with number Three, but I didn't realize he would move in with quite such a bang.

When the characters are really alive before their author, the latter does nothing but follow them in their action, in their words, in the situations which they suggest to him.

The basic quality that any great story must have is a story that illustrates the human condition.

I liked 35 and in both my novels that is the age of the lead characters. I tried making them my age but they just seemed to keep moaning about stuff.

I think that the difference between 'The Sopranos' and the shows that came before it was that it was really personal. There had been a lot of dramas, a lot of really good ones, a lot of really bad ones, but they were always franchise shows about cops, or doctors, or lawyers. They weren't about the writer himself.

Characters are incredibly important, but I tend to build them around the plot during the outline stage. However, once I'm writing the manuscript, the characters I'm writing dictate how the plot unfolds.

For me, screenwriting is all about setting characters in motion and as a writer just chasing them. They should tell you what they'll do in any scene you put them in.