Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell the students to make their characters want something right away.

I cannot write any sort of story unless there is at least one character in it for whom I have physical desire.

Character is plot, plot is character.

I would say plotting is the most difficult thing for me. Characterization is only hard because sometimes I feel I get so interested in it that I want to talk too much about the characters and that slows the story down. So I say, "Hey, people want to find out what's going to happen next, they don't want to listen to you spout off about this or that person." But I think even the bad guy deserves to tell his side of the story.

When I'm writing a script, I don't worry about plot as much as I do about people. I get to know the main characters - what they need, what they want, what they should do. That's what gets the story going. You can't just have action, you've got to find out what the characters want. And then they must grow, they must go somewhere.

Once you have your character sitting right there in your head, all you really need to do is wind them up, put them down, and simply write down what they do, say, or think.

Characters make their own plot. The dimensions of the characters determine the action of the novel.

I'll often dream about characters before I start writing their stories.

I think about the characters I've created, and then I sit down and start typing and see what they will do. There's a lot of subconscious thought that goes on. It amazes me to find out, a few chapters later, why I put someone in a certain place when I did.

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.

No, you don't have to start your play with a premise. You can start with a character or an incident, or even a simple thought. This thought or incident grows, and the story slowly unfolds itself. You have time to find your premise in the mass of your material later. The important thing is to find it.

I usually start with an ending, then outline high points of things that happen, and kind of make up the rest as I go along. Occasionally, the characters surprise me, and I wonder how we got here. Other times, the characters are stubborn and won't do something I want them to in the story.

It's rare that I actually have a story in my head. I have events or 'what's the next move?' Like, Maggie, 'where's she going to go in this story, where's she going to end up?' Then the story has to fill in the in-between, and that comes as I'm starting it.

Characters are incredibly important, but I tend to build them around the plot during the outline stage. However, once I'm writing the manuscript, the characters I'm writing dictate how the plot unfolds.

In 'Law & Order,' your main job is to stay out of the way of the plot. On another show you'd receive your script and see stuff that seems challenging and feel excited that the writers thought highly enough of you to write it for you.

I'm always writing about character first. Plot, such as it is, comes from the characters.

In creative writing, I teach that characters arise out of our need for them.

I don't really decide what the core of the story is before I write. I write to figure out what the story is. And I think the characters end up talking to you and telling you what they want to be doing and what is important to them. So in some ways, your job is to listen as much as it is to write.

When I'm breaking in a character like Jessica Jones, I have this amazing opportunity to create her backstory. It's all of the work that happens before I'm ever on camera... Writing 'Bonfire' was like doing all of that fun stuff; it was like 300 pages of prep work.

As far as the creative side, the more I do this, the more I know that it's all about the writing. We don't always celebrate that enough, but without the writing, you can't do much. You got on a film sometimes, and it's sort of half-written, and they expect and think that the actor's job is to bring the extra part and the good part. It's not.

Something people say about acting is that acting is listening. But I think that writing is listening, too. That you really have to listen to what are they saying and what they're communicating to you. And so, a lot of it is just getting stuff down.

To me, great writing - and when you can really make something wonderful out of it as an actor - is when your character has a sense of self-awareness. It doesn't necessarily have to arc. It doesn't have to grow.

Know what your characters want, know what they need most, know what they fear most, and don't be fearful of facing it, no matter how unpleasant it may be.

I was attempting to write the story of my life. It wasn't so much about plot. It was much more about character.