Tag Archives: characters

Candace Bushnell (b. December 1st): “You don’t have to do everything by the time you’re 30.”

1 Dec

bushnell_cropCandace Bushnell, born 1 December 1958, is an American author and columnist. She is best known as the best-selling author of Sex and the City.

Six quotes on writing:

  1. You don’t have to do everything by the time you’re 30. Or 40. All you need is a work ethic. It’s what allows you to push through moments of disappointment and self-doubt and fear.
  2. I started writing about New York as soon as I arrived. I was 19. I used to write short stories and send them out.
  3. As I’m writing, certain things become clear to me and certain things begin to feel right and make sense. The pieces start to fall into place.
  4. You need characters who want things. They want love, they want recognition, they want happiness.
  5. When it comes to people — don’t write about who you know; but what you know of human nature.
  6. I just wanted to be a writer. I was always attracted to books by English authors. I thought they were very, very glamorous. I read Evelyn Waugh and thought that was the ultimate.

 

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Tommy Lee Jones (b. September 15): “Characters with no integrity are interesting…”

15 Sep

jones

“Characters with no integrity are just as interesting as characters with lots of integrity.”

~ Tommy Lee Jones, b. 15 September 1946

pinterest.com/pin/39406565462812836/

 

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James Franco (b. April 19): “You want to be interesting? Be interested.”

19 Apr

francoJames Franco (born 19 April 1978) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, teacher, author and poet. His books include Palo Alto, Actors Anonymous: A Novel, and A California Childhood. Franco has also written, directed and starred in several short plays, two of which — Fool’s Gold and The Ape — he adapted into feature-length films. He wrote and directed the film Good Time Max.

Quotes:

  1. You want to be interesting? Be interested.
  2. They say living well is the best revenge but sometimes writing well is even better.
  3. Sometimes it’s painful to be oneself; at other times it seems impossible to escape oneself.
  4. Always have one artistic thing that is pure, at least one thing, where you don’t compromise. You can do other things to make money, but have one pure area.
  5. Make your characters interested in something. Striving for something. In need of something. Good at something. This will make them likeable and interesting.
  6. You also need love. Your characters need to love something, otherwise they will be unlovable.
  7. I’m a huge Cormac McCarthy fan and have read every book of his.

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Elizabeth George (b. February 26): “I have to know the killer…”

26 Feb
george

pinterest.com/pin/39406565465739058/

Elizabeth George, born 26 February 1949, is an American author of mystery novels set in Great Britain. 11 of her novels have been adapted for television by the BBC as The Inspector Lynley Mysteries.

Quotes on writing:

  1. It is the job of the novelist to touch the reader.
  2. I wish that I’d known back then that a mastery of process would lead to a product. Then I probably wouldn’t have found it so frightening to write.
  3. I find it both fascinating and disconcerting when I discover yet another person who believes that writing can’t be taught. Frankly, I don’t understand this point of view.
  4. I have to know the killer, the victim and the motive when I begin. Then I start to create the characters and see how the novel takes shape based on what these people are like.
  5. Essentially and most simply put, plot is what the characters do to deal with the situation they’re in. It’s a logical sequence of events that grow from an initial incident that alters the status quo of the characters.
  6. Plotting is difficult for me, and always has been. I do that before I actually start writing, but I always do characters, and the arc of the story, first… You can’t do anything without a story arc. Where is it going to begin, where will it end.
  7. Lots of people want to have written; they don’t want to write. In other words, they want to see their name on the front cover of a book and their grinning picture on the back. But this is what comes at the end of a job, not at the beginning.

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Candace Bushnell (b. December 1st): “You don’t have to do everything by the time you’re 30.”

1 Dec

bushnell_cropCandace Bushnell, born 1 December 1958, is an American author and columnist. She is best known as the best-selling author of Sex and the City.

Six quotes on writing:

  1. You don’t have to do everything by the time you’re 30. Or 40. All you need is a work ethic. It’s what allows you to push through moments of disappointment and self-doubt and fear.
  2. I started writing about New York as soon as I arrived. I was 19. I used to write short stories and send them out.
  3. As I’m writing, certain things become clear to me and certain things begin to feel right and make sense. The pieces start to fall into place.
  4. You need characters who want things. They want love, they want recognition, they want happiness.
  5. When it comes to people — don’t write about who you know; but what you know of human nature.
  6. I just wanted to be a writer. I was always attracted to books by English authors. I thought they were very, very glamorous. I read Evelyn Waugh and thought that was the ultimate.

 

Tags: , , ,

Tommy Lee Jones (b. September 15): “Characters with no integrity are interesting…”

15 Sep

jones

“Characters with no integrity are just as interesting as characters with lots of integrity.”

~ Tommy Lee Jones, b. 15 September 1946

pinterest.com/pin/39406565462812836/

 

Tags: , , ,

Elizabeth George (b. Feb 26): “I have to know the killer…”

26 Feb
george

pinterest.com/pin/39406565465739058/

Elizabeth George, born 26 February 1949, is an American author of mystery novels set in Great Britain. 11 of her novels have been adapted for television by the BBC as The Inspector Lynley Mysteries.

Quotes on writing:

  1. It is the job of the novelist to touch the reader.
  2. I wish that I’d known back then that a mastery of process would lead to a product. Then I probably wouldn’t have found it so frightening to write.
  3. I find it both fascinating and disconcerting when I discover yet another person who believes that writing can’t be taught. Frankly, I don’t understand this point of view.
  4. I have to know the killer, the victim and the motive when I begin. Then I start to create the characters and see how the novel takes shape based on what these people are like.
  5. Essentially and most simply put, plot is what the characters do to deal with the situation they’re in. It’s a logical sequence of events that grow from an initial incident that alters the status quo of the characters.
  6. Plotting is difficult for me, and always has been. I do that before I actually start writing, but I always do characters, and the arc of the story, first… You can’t do anything without a story arc. Where is it going to begin, where will it end.
  7. Lots of people want to have written; they don’t want to write. In other words, they want to see their name on the front cover of a book and their grinning picture on the back. But this is what comes at the end of a job, not at the beginning.

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Marisha Pessl, (b. October 26): “Some stories you should run from” & other quotes on writing

26 Oct
pessl_CROP

pinterest.com/pin/39406565465037371/

Marisha Pessl, born 26 October 1977, is an American writer best known for her debut novel, Special Topics in Calamity Physics.

Quotes on writing:

  1. My writing schedule is like any normal job, 9-5, M-F. 
  2. Some stories you should run from while you still have legs.
  3. I haven’t always been a writer and I suppose I tiptoed around the idea of writing full time, because it’s so isolating.
  4. When I’m creating characters, I definitely think of theme songs. Writing for me is very visual, so I sometimes think of it in terms of a movie with a soundtrack, and try to transfer that to words.
  5. Certainly one of the surprising truths of having a book published is realizing that your book is as open to interpretation as an abstract painting. People bring their own beliefs and attitudes to your work, which is thrilling and surprising at the same time.
  6. I think every writer has a book that haunts them, and on some level, every book you write is a reaction to it. Lolita is that book for me. Nabokov’s love of wordplay, descriptive detail, artfully complex plots, and his themes of obsession and lost love, are inspiring.
  7. Never try to change the narrative structure of someone else’s story, though you will certainly be tempted to, as you watch those poor souls in school, in life, heading unwittingly down dangerous tangents, fatal digressions from which they will unlikely be able to emerge. Resist the temptation. Spend your energies on your story. Reworking it. Making it better. Increasing the scale, the depth of content, the universal themes. And I don’t care what those themes are – they’re yours to uncover and stand behind – so long as, at the very least, there is courage.

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Tommy Lee Jones (Sept 15): “Characters with no integrity are interesting…”

15 Sep

jones

“Characters with no integrity are just as interesting as characters with lots of integrity.”

~ Tommy Lee Jones, b. 15 September 1946

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/39406565462812836/

 

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