Chris Claremont Quotes

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

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

What I do when I create a character is put in details from all the people I know who might be like that person, and then put in a huge amount of myself.

My books are based on observing others, not myself.

I think in many ways, I'm sort of a blank canvas, because in many ways, I'm just observing the world and the people around me and their characters and letting them kind of explode off me and to find out why they're doing what they're doing. But then every once in awhile, I get to take on a whole new character.

One of the reasons I love acting is because I'm so interested in other people's lives, and I often incorporate things I hear or observe into my work. I've become a bit of a 'person addict,' and so I like brushing up against lots of different characters.

For a writer it's a dream to sit and watch people as close as possible.

I create fictional narratives, but it's based on literal people.

I always start from scratch with a character - they're never based on anyone else. You get ideas of what people look like, and I'm a great people watcher. You can draw inspiration from people.

I admit I do develop characters from little parts of things I've seen others do.

Ideas come from life: what happens in mine, what I see happening in others', mixed with a great deal of imagination. I might see a person in a grocery store and build a whole character and life out of what's in her basket.

You meet people and you hear the way they talk and the way they behave, and that subconsciously gets fed into the characters you create 'cause you have to make them flesh and blood somehow.

Writers are magpies, and we collect details about people and we use them for fictional characters.

A good journalist, as you know, is a great listener. And so's a good writer. And I got to listen to people for almost 20 years. That serves me well, I hope, when I try to understand how a character might be feeling, or how they might react.

When I play games, I'll make up little stories for just anything. It's almost the game of making up background stories for people you see on the street. You know what I mean? I wasn't exactly the popular kid in school growing up, so I found myself really observing people, and watching how they interact, and how they react to things.

An actress spends a lifetime observing people. You build up a mental library. No, not a library. Make that a repository.

Actors look at life in a different way. When I meet people, I know that one day I may portray that person or someone like them. It may be a cop or a homeless guy. It helps you to pay more attention to people. Everyone I meet, I retain something from them, something from their personality. It helps me to portray realism in my work.

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

I steal things from people, characteristics, and I just stock them in my head like a library to use for characters in the future.

The great advantage of being a writer is that you can spy on people. You're there, listening to every word, but part of you is observing. Everything is useful to a writer, you see - every scrap, even the longest and most boring of luncheon parties.

Most of the time, when I'm writing, I'm writing for myself. I'm thinking, 'What will my character say at this time? What will come out of her mouth?' I create individuals so real to me, I sometimes start talking to them. Then I let them loose on the page.

I take stuff from real life and try to make a character out of it. And I try to live the world of the characters a little bit.

So, the combination of looking at lots of different people and how they react to each other and how they relate to each other and waiting for that inspiration is the thing that allows me to keep writing.

I'm a fiction writer, and fiction is telling the lives of unreal people. But the only way you can learn to do that well is by really understanding the lives of real people.

Once I started to value and respect my characters, I could really hear them. I just let them start talking.