Peter Paige Quotes

If you let the plot be determined by what you feel is in the character's mind at that point, it may not turn out to be a very good play, but at least it will be a play where people are behaving in a kind of truthful way.

I think it's always good not to listen to what the rules are supposed to be about the arc of the character and the third acts and all this stuff.

Whenever I write for television, I plan the story on whiteboard wallpaper in my office, using a system created by the American writer Dan Harmon. It's remarkably simple: a character wants something; they enter a new world and adapt to it; they get what they want, re-enter the old world and change.

I never really approach any project or story thinking of themes first or what a certain character 'represents.' Maybe other writers do, but for me, it just starts with the characters and a certain emotion I want to convey. It usually isn't until I get deeper into a book and look back a bit that I start to see the themes, etc.

We start with strong characters and build the movie from there. That not to say we don't struggle with story - that's the most challenging part.

Every single film I've done, it's about the character.

The action genre is not always the most synonymous with character development.

When you've got good writing, you can kind of give up all the research, in a way, and start just following the emotional integrity of the journey of your character.

Sometimes I know what my characters are moving away from or toward; more often I just wait and see. For instance, though I knew Sinkler in 'The Trusty' was going for water, I did not know that he would meet a fetching young farm wife until I got him into her front yard.

The story drove the book. That had a very seminal effect on the way I saw writing and storytelling. If you can set a character in a story that is compelling and has a backbone, you draw people in.

When I work, I think mainly in terms of dramatic choices.

My only conclusion about structure is that nothing works if you don't have interesting characters and a good story to tell.

I think the danger in trying to set too many things up or do too much world-building in a movie so soon is you forget to actually make a movie.

I'm interested in telling stories about characters that are interesting and who are challenging in some way, one that will make you think about them afterwards.

I look for absurdly simple plots so that I can simply focus on the characters. Having an understanding of what dialogue's easy to say and hard to say - I think that that's helpful, too.

I often attribute my screenwriting to journalism because they drill in the who, what, when, where and why - but we really need to land on that why. That's what I've been exploring in my writing for many years and trying to get better at.

Sometimes, I have themes that interest me or that touch on larger issues but, really, I'm just trying to figure out the plot, or how the characters work. I'm trying to make the best story I possibly can.

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.

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

Basically, fiction is people. You can't write fiction about ideas.

I just want to tell a good story, so I always ask myself, 'Are these people real to me?'

When I wrote for TV, I was always thinking in terms of character and story. After fifteen years, it became hard-wired in me.

Writing a novel is actually searching for victims. As I write I keep looking for casualties. The stories uncover the casualties.

I'm interested in telling the character's story, not my beliefs, political or otherwise.

'The Piano Lesson' is very sophisticated, easily the most adult or complex material I've attempted. It's the first film I've written that has a proper story, and it was a big struggle for me to write. It meant I had to admit the power of narrative.