Chester Gould Quotes

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

For me, one thing I love is having an arc for a character.

When you create a character, you create it for yourself - you do whatever you want. It's your job to explore it in as many different avenues as you can in order to make it a fully wounded character.

I build my characters from the day they're born to the first page of the script.

I'm drawn particularly to stories that evolve out of the character of the protagonist.

I like to take a character and develop it.

You always have to create the character from the ground up.

Often the starting point for characters, for me, is finding a little, most minor detail, and I'll go from there.

When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.

It's nice to create a character, not just within two scenes, but within the journey of a whole movie. It's fun to do that.

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

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

A character who is thought-out is not born, he or she is contrived. A born character is round, a thought-out character is flat.

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

Plot makes the character just as history makes the man.

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

You have to start from a place of trying to create a character.

Stories are important, but I'm really into characters, and if you can give birth to a good one, that's true success.

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.

Every character comes with its own challenges.

There is nothing like being able to develop a three-dimensional character over a long period of time. Sometimes you aren't able to fully portray a character because you only have a couple of scenes to do it in, and you don't get the full life and background of that character.

I mean, can I really create a full, three-dimensional character? I don't know anymore. I'm certainly going to try.

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.

What makes characters real are details, and if you're crafting a person from scratch, you're probably not going to pay as much attention to a question like, 'Does this person bite their nails?'

Because characters are your creations, you are the one who ultimately gets to decide their fate.