Karen Kingsbury Quotes

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?'

I do not choose characters because I think, 'Wow, that woman is so strong.' I chose these characters with utmost conviction because I think they were realistic enough to exist, and I really liked the scripts.

I've always wanted my characters to have more dimension and realistic cores than the ingenue material often provides. It's been a challenge.

I love those preliminary conversations about who a character is. You try on wigs, shoes and clothes. It's preferable when it's not about looking pretty. It can get a little dull to just be cute. We talk about things like, maybe my character can't afford these Christian Louboutins.

I don't worry about whether a character is likable, as long as the character is believable.

There's a horrible fallacy that exists in the popular discussion of fiction these days: the idea that a successful central character need be 'likeable' or 'sympathetic'. It is surely more important that they be human, no? More crucial that they breathe?

Normally you read a screenplay - and I read a lot of them - and the characters don't feel like people. They feel like plot devices or cliches or stereotypes.

I create my own backstory regardless of if I'm told something about the background or not. There's always more that you can develop in your head that makes a character more layered, more honest.

I don't want to make fictional characters who are perfect - that's a vanilla situation - but the fact is you are allowed to more carefully select and curate what it is you're going to explore.

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.

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

Don't start writing your novel until you know your characters very, very well. What they'd do if they saw somebody shoplifting. What they were like at school. What shoes they wear. Spend days - weeks, months - being them until they thicken up and start to breathe.

I do write long, long character notes - family background, history, details of appearance - much more than will ever appear in the novel. I think this is what lifts a book from that early calculated, artificial stage.

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

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.

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.

I try to create characters that I am fascinated by on some level or intrigued by or can't stand.

You need the audience to become invested in the characters and in order to become invested, they need to identify with the characters... and that's why the characters need to be real.

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

The question of likability is a bit of a puzzler for me. You know, I don't write people with likability in mind. It's more whether or not I find them compelling.

I don't write a whole lot about one person that exists in reality; it's usually characteristics of different people that I combine into a character. I tend to think through and try and make characters behave in a natural way. I follow the character and think about what they would do, what decisions they would make.

This may sound strange, but although I feel like I know everything about my characters, the brand of shampoo they use, how many cavities they have, their greatest fear, I don't actually see their faces.

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

I abhor badly-written characters and any character, be it man, woman, any character in the film. If it is a well-written character, it will come across as strong.