Thomas Perry Quotes

Unlike life, you've got more or less complete control over what's going on in your stories. That's not to say you can make characters do whatever you want them to - they usually have a life of their own if you've done your job properly.

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?'

You can't take a character anywhere they don't expect the character to go. But within those confines is where creativity lies.

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

Any author of fiction will tell you that characters don't need to be told what to do.

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

Once he became a series character, I made the conscious choice that he would never act like a series character, never wink at the reader, never pull his punches. Better for him, better for me.

'My character wouldn't do that.' That was always my favorite thing people say: 'My character wouldn't do that.' I said, 'Well, it says right here in this script your character does that.'

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.

I would never, for the sake of the story or a twist, have a character do something that they just wouldn't do. I really couldn't. I'd rather miss out on the twist.

I think if characters change too much, it's unrealistic; their whole fabric of who they are as a person doesn't just disappear.

As an author you hope your characters have sparks but truly in the end they have minds of their own!

From a writer's standpoint, each character and story presents its own unique challenges and delights. I'm deeply curious about all of my characters, and I love peeling away their layers to see what's underneath their skin, or secreted deep within their hearts.

The moment comes when a character does or says something you hadn't thought about. At that moment he's alive and you leave it to him.

I treat all my characters as if they were real, and I am scrupulous about the details of their lives.

It is a wonderful thing in the process of writing when such paper characters are first sketched, and, when one is doing good work, from a certain point in time they come alive and start contradicting the author as well.

An author's characters do what he wants them to do.

I think the main thing to remember when writing a novel is to stay true to the characters.

When the characters are really alive before their author, the latter does nothing but follow them in their action, in their words, in the situations which they suggest to him.

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.

My characters are not plastic.

A lot of times in movies, especially in sequels, the characters become caricatures and just sort of improv machines and joke machines, rather than people you can actually connect to.

We work with every one of them to see if their character wouldn't say a certain thing or if something is worded awkwardly - we work with them to rectify that.

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?