Robert Rankin Quotes

You can't really write until the characters kind of show up one day and tell you what they're going to say. You start to hear the rhythm of the way the people talk, and then it becomes easier.

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.

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.

Whichever character I'm using and wherever I am in my mind dictates what kind of story I'm going to tell.

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 try to talk about things I know about. But my characters are more of a combination of people or how I imagine people would feel.

When I write a book, characters come to life for me somewhere at the back of my head. I strive to make them flesh and blood in an abstract way, in words.

I don't ever really know where I get my characters from.

Writers often say that characters begin to write themselves, and I never used to believe that. I always thought that was complete hogwash.

I'm a novelist, so I can't write about ideas unless they're attached to people.

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.

I normally write in the first person, and my narrators are as real to me as any of the people I have worked with. They live and breathe in my imagination.

I never have particular actors planned when I'm in the process of writing.

So much of what I do... is coming up with new characters and trying to invent voices for them, and to have people fully fleshed out in my head and to know who can say what in the scene and who these characters are... I love it.

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

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.

Especially when I write, I want to get out of people's heads and have them speak and have them get dressed and have them go to work.

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

I do this a lot with names. I'll start with a name, and then for some reason he won't talk much, or he's older than I pictured him just because of a name I give him. So then I finally get the right name, and I can't shut the guy up. This always happens. There's always a character who gives me trouble that way.

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

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.

As a writer of fiction, I spend my days inventing real lives for make-believe people; what I create can only seem real.

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

There are so many characters whizzing around inside my head, it's like Looney Tunes. But as soon as I've finished writing about them, I completely forget who they are.

I don't really base any of my characters on specific people that I know, although my characters are informed by the kind of people who live in my community.