Nell Freudenberger Quotes

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

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

My characters live inside my head for a long time before I actually start a book about them. Then, they become so real to me I talk about them at the dinner table as if they are real. Some people consider this weird. But my family understands.

Characters are not created on paper or laptop alone.

The great thing about writing is that you always put yourself in the shoes of the character. If you're doing it right, you can see into the heart of all your characters. Usually, when there's a writing problem, it's because you aren't doing that.

As a writer, I always think about who my prototype actors are, in my brain. It's helpful, as a writer, to think about that.

When you create a show, and create characters, these people are like children to you.

I very seldom, very seldom, even know what my characters look like.

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.

When people ask me about my dialogue, I say, 'Don't you hear people talking?' That's all I do. I hear a certain type of individual, I decide this is what he should be, whatever it is, and then I hear him. Well, I don't hear anybody that I can't make talk.

I suppose it's easier for most writers to create and vivify characters of their own gender.

You can start imagining all kinds of things characters would feel, but you have to have a sense of whether those imaginings might be right.

I don't tend to picture my characters as actors and actresses.

I don't ever really know where I get my characters from.

Writers often say that characters begin to write themselves, and I never used to believe that. I always thought that was complete hogwash.

I became, and remain, my characters' close and intent watcher: their director, never. Their creator I cannot feel that I was, or am.

I love... What's gratifying to me is when you make/create a character and a human being, a person who lives entirely and who has their own existence, just merely from the words on a page.

I always believed in my characters. I lived them.

Sometimes a character is really based on research that you do. Other times it's just based on your imagination or perhaps your conversation with the director. Or sometimes all of the above. It depends on the movie and character.

When you write, you hear the characters speaking to you as you take dictation from what they say. And obviously, they had particular personalities when you hear them.

Whichever character I'm using and wherever I am in my mind dictates what kind of story I'm going to tell.

The hardest thing is to write about people. First and foremost, you have to encounter their humanity. That is the only way you can make them live as characters on the page.

I like to make definite choices and give my characters as many unique edges as possible.

After a while, the characters I'm writing begin to feel real to me. That's when I know I'm heading in the right direction.

I never have particular actors planned when I'm in the process of writing.