Stephen Hopkins Quotes

I never write with an actor in mind - never.

I love making characters real and believable, through my own experience and choices.

And I have the support of the writers: I have a great relationship with the creative team, and they have a good hold of my character and my personality, and they come up with some great stuff, and I'm forever trying to change it up, keep it fresh.

You need to know the characters as living, breathing people before you start the plot; otherwise, you'll feel panic, anarchy and chaos.

My first job is to write the characters as full and authentic people as well as I can.

It's hard to know whether certain characters come to life or not, they either come to have their own life or they don't. I've written many things in which the characters just remain inert.

I always say I write my own novels and the characters don't take control of me, but in fact, I look at the characters in the early stages and I think, 'What is he or she like,' and they slowly come together and they become the person they are.

I try to ground most of my characters in reality somehow. That's kind of what I bring to the table.

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.

All the great writers root their characters in true human behaviour.

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

I try to build a full personality for each of our cartoon characters - to make them personalities.

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.

I always try to write about believable people.

It's very hard to connect with a character when you haven't gotten a sense of who they are.

When you're writing fiction, you're in every character 'cause you can't help it.

Characters are not created on paper or laptop alone.

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

As a writer, every time I create a character, I try to go for something to captivate the audience in some way. It's also an extension of how the audience would like to see themselves.

As writers, we are sketching people all the time when we write fiction.

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

I see people sometimes who remind me of my narrators.

It's usually easier for me to begin writing in a character's voice if that person is different from me in some significant way.

How I work is I work from of very character-driven place. And I trust the writers.