Michael Hirst Quotes

You've got to leave the reader with more than just a name and a costume - they need to know who the character is, what they're like, what kind of attitude they have, what sort of role they play.

I tend to come up with people more than situations - most of my books start with a character.

Any author of fiction will tell you that characters don't need to be told what to do.

Every character comes with its own challenges.

I believe the most intricate plot won't matter much to readers if they don't care about the characters, especially in a series. So I try to focus hard on making each character, whether villain or hero, have an interesting flaw that readers can relate to.

There are always different roles and questions to be asked about certain characters.

I feel like a lot of characters on TV don't have the time to tell that many aspects of a character's story and personality.

I live intimately with my characters before starting a book. I cut out pictures of them for my wall. I do time lines for each major character and a time line for the entire novel: What is going on in the world as my characters struggle with their problems?

I usually start with a repulsive character and go on from there.

When you're writing a book, with people in it as opposed to animals, it is no good having people who are ordinary, because they are not going to interest your readers at all. Every writer in the world has to use the characters that have something interesting about them, and this is even more true in children's books.

My books are primarily plot driven but the best plot in the world is useless if you don't populate them with characters that readers can care about.

I try to begin with a strong grasp of my characters. Even if it's schematic, I need it clear in my head who these people are.

I'm tired of playing freaking cha-chas, the sassy CIA agent, the best friend homegirl. I'm tired of that!

A lot of times I'll make films that are mostly character-driven films - stories that involve people. Like, I make the joke: I like to make movies about human beings that live on Earth.

I try to create characters that I am fascinated by on some level or intrigued by or can't stand.

I have a cheat-sheet for each one of my characters about their personality, the way they look, etc. So there is no possible way that I could have writer's block.

I'm about my characters.

Developing characters is a strange thing. In the beginning they are abstract and I wonder how to move on from there.

I always look for interesting, complex characters. You know, interesting, well-written material.

It's necessary to track characters all the way through an opera. If you're dealing with more than one or two characters, it's very easy to forget that the others have lives of their own that feed into the story.

For me, plot always comes out of character, so I had to be sure of my characters.

Often the starting point for characters, for me, is finding a little, most minor detail, and I'll go from there.

To me, the struggle is to try to make a less-well-written or less-well-rounded character and find who they are. If you really get it, and it's all on the page, then it's really just gonna pop out at you.

When you create a character, you create it for yourself - you do whatever you want. It's your job to explore it in as many different avenues as you can in order to make it a fully wounded character.

You have to add some sort of dimension to each of your characters because everyone has their own layers.