Maria Semple Quotes

Sympathetic characters usually have a voice. They usually don't have any trouble being heard.

What I look for in any character, good or bad, is whether I can hear him speak. If I can imagine him that clearly, then I can write about him.

I write in character a lot.

To combine telling an interesting story with brilliantly written characters is the most difficult thing to do.

Outside books, we avoid colorful characters.

For me, the dialogue is the easiest part of writing. It just always seems so obvious what a character will say. Maybe it's because I talk too much!

I find it an easy way into writing pieces is to think what the character's voice is like, and start from there.

I do like to embed a fictional character firmly in an occupation.

When I wrote for TV, I was always thinking in terms of character and story. After fifteen years, it became hard-wired in me.

Settings are obviously important - and as a writer, you have to respect what was real at the time of the story you're writing. But the real key to success lies in finding the right characters to carry that story.

Never argue with your characters; they know themselves better than you do.

I never try to give a message in my books. It's about living with characters long enough to hear their voices and let them tell me the story. Sometimes I would love to have a happy ending, and it doesn't happen because the character or the story leads me in another direction.

In television writing, you want to hear what the characters say as opposed to giving them something to say. It's the same with the cartoons.

When you are working on a script, the story itself is not difficult. You say this would happen and then this, resulting perhaps in this. And the dialogue you make as true as you can.

When you've got good writing, you can kind of give up all the research, in a way, and start just following the emotional integrity of the journey of your character.

It's your job to come up with compelling characters who speak to an individual authenticity. If I'm not interested in the characters, I can't go on. I have to be fascinated by them.

Most good fiction also has a character the writer seems to know more deeply than anyone can actually be known in life, but a few unusual writers can make something great without that.

There are so many characters whizzing around inside my head, it's like Looney Tunes. But as soon as I've finished writing about them, I completely forget who they are.

One of the challenges is creating characters. I am trying to compose my sentences to express epic events happening to ordinary people.

You've either got to find a way to make your continuing characters insteresting without making them maudlin or overwrought, or you've got to put more emphasis on the suspects.

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

When I write a book, characters come to life for me somewhere at the back of my head. I strive to make them flesh and blood in an abstract way, in words.

To get a connection to your characters, you have to put them in a situation that you can feel yourself.

Whether it is television or film, the character on the page has to speak to me.

We have a writing process that's very much you try to create the character in a complicated way and then you let the story lead you to discovering who the character is in a natural way.