Ethan Canin Quotes

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.

Sometimes I'll get a premise, you know, for a book. In fact, I get those quite often. And I don't commit to it until I really know the voice of that character. It's almost as if the character is speaking to me.

When you're a writer, if you're very lucky, you create these characters that you fall in love with, and you feel like they're guiding you rather than you guiding them.

There are fragments of me in all my characters.

I spent some time, six months or so, ruminating about the characters before I sat down to write 'Faith'.

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.

I find it an easy way into writing pieces is to think what the character's voice is like, and start from there.

I never base characters on real people. There are people who do that but I really don't know how to do it.

That's the way it happens - some characters you set out to use, some are happy accidents. As long as it works, it doesn't really matter how you got them.

When I'm writing a story, which takes me a year or more, I can feel my character living with me - they're responding to whatever funny, familial, or social situation I'm in, and I think about their responses constantly.

What comes easiest for me is dialogue. Sometimes when my characters are speaking to me, I have to slow them down so that I'm not simply taking dictation.

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.

I don't really set out to explore grand themes. I set out to tell a story. And one I have to be able to imagine right through.

I just let the character speak to me and things appear.

I put a lot of myself into my characters when I write.

When I sit down to write, I know everything I need to know... I start writing, and within 30 seconds or 60 seconds, I'm watching a movie. I'm not making this stuff up; the characters are acting it out, and I'm just writing it down.

No I don't really write thinking about specific actors because it can get in the way a little bit.

When I'm writing a novel, I'm usually just trying to write about things that are interesting to me.

I think a conceptual idea comes to me first - something I've been mulling over a lot right before I feel like writing a book - and then the characters start to develop around it.

Most of the time, when I'm writing, I'm writing for myself. I'm thinking, 'What will my character say at this time? What will come out of her mouth?' I create individuals so real to me, I sometimes start talking to them. Then I let them loose on the page.

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

Rarely does a complete idea come to me. I basically start with just a small scene or a snatch of dialogue and force myself to write and to keep writing. Sometimes it becomes a book.

There's some of me in all my characters.

A character takes shape in the act of writing. You start with something, and you add or subtract.

Often what happens with the writing is that you know where you want to start and you know where you want to end, but the journey is never quite what you predict because the characters take on a life on their own.