Juliet Marillier Quotes

The great thing about writing is that you always put yourself in the shoes of the character. If you're doing it right, you can see into the heart of all your characters. Usually, when there's a writing problem, it's because you aren't doing that.

The characters in my stories all have quite loud lives in my head. It's a relief to get them on the page. Often they come from people I've noticed or overheard - but that is only a part of them. It's only by writing that I discover who these people really are.

I don't have to live the lives of my characters to write about them. It's about really putting yourself in their shoes.

But I always need to identify with a character to write about him or her - and by 'identify,' I mean see the world through that person's eyes and have a strong sense of the inner logic of their acts and decisions, wacky or wrongheaded though they might be. In that sense, I think there's some of me in all of them.

Part of being a fiction writer is being able to imagine how someone else is thinking and feeling. I think I've always been good at that.

To imagine yourself inside another person... is what a storywriter does in every piece of work; it is his first step, and his last too, I suppose.

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

To write convincingly, I think you must be able to relate, in some way, to what a character is experiencing.

You can start imagining all kinds of things characters would feel, but you have to have a sense of whether those imaginings might be right.

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.

When you write, you hear the characters speaking to you as you take dictation from what they say. And obviously, they had particular personalities when you hear them.

I have to have a character worth caring about. I tend not to start writing books about people I don't have a lot of sympathy for because I'm just going to be with them too long.

When I'm writing fiction, I'm sort of interested by the fact that somehow or other I can have the feeling of actually seeing things through someone else's eyes.

You have to have empathy, knowledge and compassion for your characters if you're a writer.

I spend a lot of time with my characters.

I think the idea is to try and understand everything about the characters and where the character is coming from, from their point of view, why they say what they do. And not, 'Oh, but I would never say that. Why does the character say that?' But then making it as personal as possible.

What I look for in any character, good or bad, is whether I can hear him speak. If I can imagine him that clearly, then I can write about him.

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

If I don't fall in love with my characters, I cannot shoot.

What I've tended to do is to use my own experiences to get into someone else's mind, like in Wuthering Heights.

I do a lot better if I sit around and think about a character for a couple of months.

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.

I want to have compassion for my characters - I feel like I am the characters when I'm writing them.

I think the moment you're writing about somebody who's not exactly you, then the challenge is all equal.

When I'm writing a book, sentence by sentence, I'm not thinking theoretically. I'm just trying to work out the story from inside the characters I've got.