Therese Fowler Quotes

There's no game plan when it comes to thinking up new characters; inspiration can come from anything - from a wig I've seen to an expression I've heard someone use.

I picture my books as movies when I get stuck, and when I'm working on a new idea, the first thing I do is hit theaters to work out pacing and mood.

At first, I see pictures of a story in my mind. Then creating the story comes from asking questions of myself. I guess you might call it the 'what if - what then' approach to writing and illustration.

Usually when you're doing concepts for a character, you just try a couple different things to see what sticks.

Before I write a novel, images float around in my head that work like icons - they are meaningless in themselves, but serve as reminders.

For me, the whole process involves envisioning this book in my head as I'm working.

In all my characters, I try to find an iota of myself, and in Castle, I found a lot. He gets away with a lot, so that's fun.

I do take this insane pleasure in world-building. I get the world in my head, but I have to make sure everyone else gets it.

My writing process often begins with a question. I write down ideas and let them stew for about a year. Then, when I sit down to write, I make a list of characters and try to see how they fit.

I think almost always that what gets me going with a story is the atmosphere, the visual imagery, and then I people it with characters, not the other way around.

Actors, their greatest tool, their greatest resource is imagination. You can take things, power objects, you can recruit your dreams, you can access your memories and get there. So the idea is not to act but to just be.

I am not an analytical writer. Once I flesh out my characters and decide on the elements of my plot, the story unfolds in my head almost as though it was a movie reel.

So in the first draft, I'm inventing people and place with a broad schematic idea of what's going to happen. In the process, of course, I discover all sorts of bigger and more substantial things.

And that's why any of my picture books exist: They all seem to be built backwards from a simple, emotionally optimistic story beat.

I just love to be able to actually build a character.

I started improvising the Cliff character, based on someone I grew up with.

I don't have a drawer full of ideas. I kind of look around and take notes and wonder what could actually be a whole movie. And each time, I think I'm going to do it more commercial this time; I'm going to get a big budget and make it. But I always come up with some small idea.

I like to build a character, trying to stretch my imagination as far to the walls of my brain as I can to come up with something that feels truthful and feels real - as close to the skin as I can get it.

The characters emerge from my rather twisted mind. That's another enjoyable part of the job making stuff up.

What's funny about that is when I was writing Twilight just for myself and not thinking of it as a book, I was not thinking about publishing, and yet at the same time I was casting it in my head. Because when I read books, I see them very visually.

Like every novelist, I fantasise about film. Novelists are not equipped to make a movie, in my opinion. They make their own movie when they write: they're casting, they're dressing the scene, they're working out where the energy of the scene is coming from, and they're also relying tremendously on the creative imagination of the reader.

I don't sit down in front of my computer screen and think, 'Right. Today I shall begin a story set in this or that period of history.' I just get ideas from the world around me.

People sometimes ask who I would cast in my books and I never have any idea. I don't think I could ever write a book thinking of it as a movie the whole time. This would be like building a house and filling it with furniture just so you could have blueprints.

I'm always determined that as a novelist I'm going to go out there and research my characters very thoroughly before I start writing.

When I write, it's like watching a movie in my head.