Quotes & Sayings About Authors And Their Characters

Authors have to write for their characters, for who they are, that's the strength of books. Don't worry about censors. Just write the story you need to tell and the rewards will come. — Ellen Hopkins

I decided to work on hand animate because the animators work as authors in every little scene and it brings real soul for characters. — Luiz Bolognesi

Discussions of the effects of serial publication of Victorian novels on their authors and readers1 usually draw attention to the author's peculiar opportunities for cliff-hanging suspense, as, for instance, when Thackeray has Becky Sharp counter old Sir Pitt's marriage proposal at the end of Vanity Fair's fourth number with the revelation
that she is already married, and the reader must wait a month before the husband's identity is revealed. Or it may be pointed out how the author can modify his story in response to his readers' complaints or recommendations, as when Trollope records in his
Autobiography how he wrote Mrs Proudie out of the Barchester Chronicles after overhearing two clergymen in the Athenaeum complaining of his habit of reintroducing the same characters in his fiction. — Ian Gregor

...because there's a secret order. The books, you can't place them random. The other day I put Cervantes next to Tolstoj.
And I thought, if close to Anna Karenina we have Don Quixote, sure the latter will do his best to save her. — Ettore Scola

Sometimes, authors' descriptions of unique fictional characters are like mirrors that reflect the readers image back. — Ben Abix

If there weren't so many interesting conversations taking place inside my head, I might venture to speak out loud. — Richelle E. Goodrich

The Baby Name book can be a very dangerous tool in the hands of a prolific author. — Michelle M. Pillow

I didn't have anyone, but every time I walked through those doors I felt like each of those authors was my family and the characters they created were all my friends. I counted on them. They were all I ever had. All I still have. Now that the store may go out of business I feel like I'm losing my family and friends. I love all my books. Being a book lover saved my life. — J.L. Mac

We are free when we are not the slave of our impulses, but rather their master. Taking inward distance, we thus become the authors of our own dramas rather than characters in them. — Huston Smith

We choose owning our stories of struggle, Over hiding, over hustling, over pretending. When we deny our stories, they define us. When we run from struggle, we are never free. So we turn toward truth and look it in the eye. We will not be characters in our stories. Not villains, not victims, not even heroes. We are the authors of our lives. We write our own daring endings. We craft love from heartbreak, Compassion from shame, Grace from disappointment, Courage from failure. Showing up is our power. Story is our way home. Truth is our song. We are the brave and brokenhearted. — Brene Brown

When we read, we are spying on someone else's imagination and inhabiting it; the authors and their characters are momentarily our friends, even if they betray us, or we them. — Pamela Paul

Everyone's life is an evolution of emotions, spirit and beliefs. The storyline changes, plots thicken, main characters mature and new spiritual journeys begin. This is true of inspirational authors. Their books represent only the stages of their life. New triumphs of the soul have yet to be written! — Shannon L. Alder

Look like chick books."
"And you're a chick, so what's the problem?"
She laughs. "Well, you've got beans and franks, or so I assume."
"Hey," he says, suddenly all serious. "Reading books by female authors does not limit my macho vibe. Plus, bitches write the best characters, man. It's like they get people, you know? — Chuck Wendig

I'd said to them that when we read fiction, we pour our own paricular store of emotions - say, the sense of loss we feel for those disappeared from our lives - into the characters set before us. We take the few words with which the writer sketches these characters, the thing he said, the pain she felt, where they were, and our own emotional stockpile magically creates people. As the human eye fleshes out the pixilated image. Fictional characters are highly sophiticated Rorschach blots, and we, along with their author, are their authors. When you read a fictional character, you too are creating her. — Chandler Burr

There are twenty-four characters in this book named Max. Let there be an end to this silly business of authors never giving their own names to characters in their novels. False modesty, faugh! — Max Shulman

grew up reading books where vampires were scary. This novel is an attempt to make them scary again. When I thought of the premise that became DRACULAS, I knew it needed to be a group project. Take four well-known horror authors, let them each create their own unique characters, and have them fight for their lives during a vampire outbreak at a secluded, rural hospital. This is NOT a collection of short stories. It's a single, complete novel. And it's going to freak you out. If you're easily disturbed, have a weak stomach, or are prone to nightmares, stop reading right now. There are no sexy teen heartthrobs herein. You have been warned. — Blake Crouch

There was, in my view, an unwritten contract with the reader that the writer must honour. No single element of an imagined world or any of its characters should be allowed to dissolve on an authorial whim. The invented had to be as solid and as self-consistent as the actual. This was a contract founded on mutual trust. — Ian McEwan

Writing is a habit, an addiction, as powerful and overmastering an urge as putting a bottle to your lips or a spike in your arm. Call it the impulse to make something out of nothing, call it an obsessive-compulsive disorder, call it logorrhea. Have you been in a bookstore lately? Have you seen what these authors are doing, the mountainous piles of the flakes of themselves they're leaving behind, like the neatly labeled jars of shit, piss, and toenail clippings one of John Barth's characters bequeathed to his wife, the ultimate expression of his deepest self? — T.C. Boyle

Every book begins and ends with other people- the readers who suggest the book to us and encourage us to read it, the talented author who crafted each word, the fascinating individuals we meet inside the pages- and the readers we discuss and share the book with when we finish. — Donalyn Miller

Some writers need to sink in order to feel what their characters feel; in order to write their characters with the truest feeling possible. Those closest to those writers end up feeling the effects of that process. It takes a strong person to be with an emphatic writer. — Lori Goodwin

Hundreds of thousands of people live in my library. Some are real, others are fictional. The real ones are the so-called imaginary characters in works of literature, the fictional ones are their authors. We know everything about the former, or at least as much as we are meant to know, everything that is written about a given character in a novel, a story or a poem in which she or he figures ... The rest doesn't matter. Nothing is hidden from us. For us, a novel's characters are real. (p. 80 — Jacques Bonnet

Authors, she soon decided, were probably best met within the pages of their novels, and were as much creatures of the reader's imagination as the characters in their books. Nor did they seem to think one had done them a kindness by reading their writings. Rather they had done one the kindness by writing them. — Alan Bennett

There are many readers of the book, who don't know anything about the authors and the artists. There is more than one author. It doesn't matter, if you can't make the reader dive into the story and surround him with that environment and those characters. That's an experience that lasts longer than figuring out who did what. I think that's what makes our working relationship better, it helps us to make a book that feels unique and not like different voices. — Gabriel Ba

I have this theory that the likeability question comes up so much more with female characters created by female authors than it does with male characters and male authors. — Curtis Sittenfeld

Are my characters copies of people in real life? ... Don't ever believe the stories about authors putting people into novels. That idea is a kind of joke on both authors and readers. All the readers believe that authors do it. All the authors know that it can't be done. — Ayn Rand

To say that Agatha Christie's characters are cardboard cut-outs is an insult to cardboard cut-outs. — Ruth Rendell

I like authors who experiment with narrative and delve into very specific conditions within their characters in order to expose universal truths about humanity. After reading, I like to feel that I've experienced, learned, identified, been challenged and been provided with insight. — Amanda Knox

I know authors shouldn't play favorites with books, but 'Release Me' really is right up there for me. The characters truly came alive on the page and drove the story as much as I did from behind the scenes. It was a pleasure to write, and I'm so thrilled that it's the first of a trilogy because I get to spend more time with the characters. — Julie Kenner

Authors have odd relationships with their creations They owe their fame and fortune to their characters but feel enslaved by them. — Anthony Horowitz

Perfect. Then imagine that you started reading the most interesting and fascinating comic book ever created. You fell in love with some characters, you hated others. Endless plots unfolded and every one was an emotional page-turner you couldn't read fast enough because you had to know what was going to happen next. You felt like the world would end if you didn't find out how the story ended. But then you get to the end and there was no end. The author didn't finish it. You don't know if good or evil won. You don't know if the guy got the girl. You don't know any of the answers to all your important questions — Karen Amanda Hooper

If you could meet any character from literature, who would it be?

I would not want characters to come to my world. They'd lose their special qualities, the perfect amount of what I should know about them. On the other hand, I could go to theirs because they would not have any preconceptions of who I was. I'd like to hang out with the Cheshire cat, learn how to disappear, and speak in smart illogic. He would look exactly like his pen-and-ink illustration by Tenniel. I'd be rendered in pen and ink, too. That would be required for entering a pen-and-ink world with its particular dimensional strangeness. — Amy Tan

For a book to be a good one a reader must have a connection with the characters and identify with them and have the story hold their attention and want more — Brenda Kay Winters

What a trajedy to be a martyr for love, yet we worship the characters anyways because they remind us of how we struggled. — Shannon L. Alder

Fantasy stories will always be popular, as there are always readers who are willing to escape, freely, to the worlds that the authors create, and spend time with the characters we give life to. — Jason Ellis

Good characters in fiction are the very devil. Not only because most authors have too little material to make them of, but because we as readers have a strong subconscious wish to find them incredible. — C.S. Lewis

Authors can only soft sell the environment. Create a wonderful story around the environment involving the characters that leaves a lasting impression on the reader's mind. — Wilbur Smith

Authors may have very good reasons for staying out of character's minds. What is in their mind ought to be out in the world of their action anyway, just as in Real Life. Inside is already out there, and visible. It is also a reader's responsibility to imaginatively project the inner-lives of characters just as we have to imaginatively project the inner-lives of those most dear to us in Real Life. — Nathan "N.R." Gaddis

Authors also create lovable, friendly characters, then proceed to do terrible things to them, like throw them in unsightly librarian-controlled dungeons. This makes readers feel hurt and worried for the characters. The simple truth is that authors like making people squirm. If this weren't the case, all novels would be filled completely with cute bunnies having birthday parties. — Brandon Sanderson

The parallels between a stage and a book are compelling. You, like all authors, create 'characters' in a 'setting' who speak 'dialogue' encased in 'scenes.' Most importantly, you - like the playwright - have an 'audience.' — Nancy Kress

Meeting authors is kind of the death of the characters. That is always heartbreaking. — Chuck Palahniuk

In my world," said Posy, "authors write stories, and the characters do whatever the author tells them. It's not like this--the characters don't have minds and lives of their own."
"How do you know this?" was Caris' surprising reply. The corner of her mouth turned up in a playful smile. "You do not see the characters when the pages of the book are shut. Is there never a time when you read a book for the second time and you notice something that you didn't remember from the first time? Or hear a story told, and every time it is told it grows and changes in the telling? Change is the nature of everything. — Ashlee Willis

Georgia Author Brenda Sutton Rose captures some of the conflicted and captivating characters of a rapidly changing South. — Janisse Ray

I'm not one of those authors who claims to hear voices in my head or 'let the characters speak through me,' whatever that might mean. — Robin Wasserman

Most gothics are overplotted novels whose success or failure hinges on the author's ability to make you believe in the characters and partake of the mood. — Stephen King

Authors can only allow readers to learn so much about their characters. As much as they try to build someone three dimensionally on a page, words are still limited and subject to imagination and interpretation — Heather Lyons

The world an author creates and the characters that inhabit it may come from her imagination alone, but few authors can wrestle the story that emerges into shape without help. — Tammara Webber

Historically, dust jackets are a new concern for authors; you don't see them much before the 1920s. And dust jacket is a strange name for this contrivance, as if books had anything to fear from dust. If you store a book properly, standing up, then the jacket doesn't cover the one part of the book that is actually exposed to dust, which is the top of the pages. So a dust jacket is no such thing at all; it is really a sort of advertising wrapper, like the brown paper sheath on a Hershey's bar. On this wrapper goes the manufacturer's name, the ingredients
some blithering about unforgettable characters or gemlike prose or gripping narrative
and a brief summation of who does what to whom in our gripping, unforgettable, gemlike object. — Paul Collins

He showed, in a few words, that it is not sufficient to throw together a few incidents that are to be met with in every romance, and that to dazzle the spectator the thought should be new, without being farfetched; frequently sublime, but always natural; the author should have a thorough knowledge of the human heart and make it speak properly; he should be a complete poet, without showing an affectation of it in any of the characters of his piece; he should be a perfect master of his language, speak it with all its pruity and with the utmost harmony, and yet so as not to make the sense a slave to the rhyme. Whoever, added he, neglects any one of these rules, though he may write two or three tragedies with tolerable success, will never be reckoned in the number of good authors. — Voltaire

I see God now as an unimaginative writer of popular fictions, someone who builds stories around sadistic and graceless plots, narratives that exist only to express His terror of a woman's power to choose who and how to love, to redefine love as she sees fit, not as God thinks it ought to be. The author is unworthy of His own characters. — Joe Hill

Film and novel characters are often stereotyped, but racial stereotyping in many novels or films creates & encourages labelling, discrimination & racism. ~Angelica Hopes — Angelica Hopes

Stephen King started to read comics first, I started to watch films and little reading books...Now everything has changed Stephen King reads books and watch films, I read comics, watch films, read books listen to audiobooks...
This are two different stories, you were challanged to open them, good job you open them now but can you try to start a new life??
To start by opening a new book??
Meeting with new characters??
With new writers??
With one new book which has a story which you haven't heard??
Probably, you aren't still ready! — Deyth Banger

When authors write best, or at least, when they write most fluently, an influence seems to waken in them which becomes their master, which will have its own way, putting out of view all behests but its own, dictating certain words, and insisting on their being used, whether vehement or measured in their nature; new moulding characters, giving unthought-of turns to incidents, rejecting carefully elaborated old ideas, and suddenly creating and adopting new ones. Is it not so? And should we try to counteract this influence? Can we indeed counteract it?
from a letter to G.H. Lewes, 12 January 1848 — Charlotte Bronte

The value of experience, real or imagined, is that is shows us how to - or how NOT to - live. In reading about different characters and the consequences of their choices, I was finding myself changed. I was discovering new and distinct ways of undergoing life's sorrows and joys ...
and all the great books I was reading - were about the complexity and entirety of the human experience. About the things we wish to forget and those we want more and more of. About how we react and how we wish we could react. Books ARE experience, the words of authors proving the solace of love, the fulfillment of family, the torment of war, and the wisdom of memory. Joy and tears, pleasure and pain: everything came to me while I read in my purple chair. i had never sat so still, and yet experienced so much. — Nina Sankovitch

The National Book Festival is a great way for families and friends to share the creative works of some of America's most-loved authors, .. Readers of all ages can listen to favorite writers speaking about their books, have books autographed, meet many storybook characters and enjoy a day on the National Mall. — Laura Bush

Whether you look at Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism, wherever a distinction of sex is made, it is to the advantage of men. If you think of religions as if they were novels, the authors are men, and so are the major characters ... — Katha Pollitt

MANIFESTO OF THE BRAVE AND BROKENHEARTED There is no greater threat to the critics and cynics and fearmongers Than those of us who are willing to fall Because we have learned how to rise With skinned knees and bruised hearts; We choose owning our stories of struggle, Over hiding, over hustling, over pretending. When we deny our stories, they define us. When we run from struggle, we are never free. So we turn toward truth and look it in the eye. We will not be characters in our stories. Not villains, not victims, not even heroes. We are the authors of our lives. We write our own daring endings. We craft love from heartbreak, Compassion from shame, Grace from disappointment, Courage from failure. Showing up is our power. Story is our way home. Truth is our song. We are the brave and brokenhearted. We are rising strong. — Brene Brown