A Quote by Gail Simone
I get very invested in characters, it's the only way I find that I can write a book and really make it work.
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I get very invested in characters; it's the only way I find that I can write a book and really make it work.
If you get the characters right you've done sometimes nearly half the work. I sometimes find I get the characters right then the characters will often help me write the book - not what they look like that's not very important - what people look like is not about their character. You have to describe the shape they leave in the world, how they react to things, what effect they have on people and you do that by telling their story.
We're at a point nowhere it has to change. We have characters that are not alive that are alive in the book. We have characters that never appeared in the book. We have a lot of events that didn't quite happen the same way in the book. But there's so much in the book, stuff we've passed in the timeline that I really thought was awesome, that I really wanted to get to.
I think there's a lack of really, really good funny scripts out there that work on all the levels that they're supposed to - which is to say that they're not just funny but they have interesting characters that people are going to like and be invested in. I've done a bunch of movies that haven't worked but I like to think I've done some that have worked and that's because not only is the comedy there but the characters and storylines are interesting. The characters are real and relateable and people were invested in them.
The most common thing I find is very brilliant, acute, young people who want to become writers but they are not writing. You know, they really badly want to write a book but they are not writing it. The only advice I can give them is to just write it, get to the end of it. And, you know, if it's not good enough, write another one.
It's really, really eclectic. It's not a business book [Girlboss], but it's still a book that should make you want to get up and do things and think about your life. And for a book that looks that beautiful on a coffee table, I think that's a very special thing. So it's hopefully a new genre I guess, of book. It was so fun to put together and fun to write, that was really a pleasure.
The best morals kids get from any book is just the capacity to empathize with other people, to care about the characters and their feelings. So you don't have to write a preachy book to do that. You just have to make it a fun book with characters they care about, and they will become better people as a result.
I find that the only way to make my characters really interesting to children is to exaggerate all their good or bad qualities, and so if a person is nasty or bad or cruel, you make them very nasty, very bad, very cruel. If they are ugly, you make them extremely ugly. That, I think, is fun and makes an impact.
When I write a book, I don't have a plan or an outline. The characters move the action, and the action develops the characters. When I write a book, I become an actor, really, taking the role of the person who is speaking or acting at the time, and so their reactions to whatever they see are my reactions.
Any narrative, whether it's fiction or not, you have to approach it as though it really happened to you. I think that's the only way to get inside the characters and make the narrative work. It's a storytelling tradition, and I think to come off as genuine then you have to really approach it that way.
The only way to write a book, I’m fond of telling people, is to actually write a book. That’s how you write a book.
Yes. To write a novel is to risk my sanity. The deeper I get into the suffering and conflict of the characters, into the very situations and thoughts and feelings that make the novel worthwhile, the worse I feel, and the more likely I am to be severely depressed when the book is finished. There is no avoiding this: it is the result of attempting to tell all you know, to reach for the stars, to write what matters.
When you get divorced, all the truths that come out, you sit there and go, 'What the f**k was I doing? What was I doing believing that this person was invested in this way?' Which is a fantastically strong humiliation in the best sense. It can make somebody very bitter and very hard and closed off, but I find it does the opposite to me.
Go where the pleasure is in your writing. Go where the pain is. Write the book you would like to read. Write the book you have been trying to find but have not found. But write. And remember, there are no rules for our profession. Ignore rules. Ignore what I say here if it doesn't help you. Do it your own way. Every writer knows fear and discouragement. Just write.The world is crying for new writing. It is crying for fresh and original voices and new characters and new stories. If you won't write the classics of tomorrow, well, we will not have any.
Which is a wonderful irony, I have property there. I go back every chance I get. One of the main reasons I actually wrote the book, agreed to write it having never wanted to do that in my life, very intimidating by the way to write a book.
The way I write is really like putting one foot in front of the other. I really let the characters do most of the work, they start talking and they just lead the way.
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