Nancy Werlin Quotes

For every book that I write... I develop a history for each person and make sure they are well rounded and flawed. You have to know everything about them from their shoe size, to where they went to school, to what their first pet was, to what they like to eat, to what they want out of life.

What helps writers, and ultimately, obviously, helps the actors - who should serve the words that the writer puts on the page - is if the character has damages, because then the writers can cultivate and excavate, like a dentist going into a tooth.

When you're crafting a character, it's good to have a lot of influences.

There are a lot of techniques for developing a character.

It's the same as any role and I find that you can't lump characters together; because they all have different life experiences, different reasons for being the way they are.

I wanted more in depth ideas about the character and it never came.

A character who is thought-out is not born, he or she is contrived. A born character is round, a thought-out character is flat.

If you know your characters well enough, you aren't trying to grasp for storylines. You're really thinking about their flaws and their passions and what they're chasing.

There's a horrible fallacy that exists in the popular discussion of fiction these days: the idea that a successful central character need be 'likeable' or 'sympathetic'. It is surely more important that they be human, no? More crucial that they breathe?

The more conflict and contrast you have with a character makes it more interesting.

Action is only really compelling when it reveals character - character revealed through action, and not action for its own sake.

We figured the audience would want good stories, great art, wonderful characters, people you could fall in love with that we would immediately put through hell.

Detailing and backstories are so important; only they draw you into the life of a character.

The thing with videogame characters is that they tend to be really undercooked, and people don't take the time to really flesh them out. They don't treat them with the respect that a writer writing characters in any other medium would treat their character.

When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.

I like having a plot; I like characters with a reason to get up in the morning.

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.

I'm all about the story. If I like the character and I think the story's entertaining, I'll do it.

I try to stay away from stuff that's just action, action, action, action, action, and you kind of fast-forward through the dialogue scenes. I'm not interested in doing that. Give me a reason to fight, and I'll go there. But don't just make it, 'You touched my pen! Haaa-yah!' I've done that before.

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

I'm drawn particularly to stories that evolve out of the character of the protagonist.

I try to research or make up for myself what happened in any character's life. From when he was born until the first page of the script. I fill in the blanks.

Any time you get to dig deeper into your character, you welcome it, especially on a TV show.

You don't need to like your protagonists.

A lot of times, scripts are written so the character is all one way. Even with 'Bringing Out the Dead,' the character was written a little more generic.