Character Vs Story Quotes & Sayings

To us he's like... like scenery, in the background of our lives, but for him, he's the main character. He has a life and a job and a whole story. He's a real person. And to him, we're the background scenery. — Dan Wells

I'm interested in telling the character's story, not my beliefs, political or otherwise. — Sarah Paulson

Chris Claremont once said of Alan Moore, "if he could plot, we'd all have to get together and kill him." Which utterly misses the most compelling part of Alan's writing, the way he develops and expresses ideas and character. Plot does not define story. Plot is the framework within which ideas are explored and personalities and relationships are unfolded. — Warren Ellis

There is one final point, the point that separates a true multivolume work from a short story, a novel, or a series. The ending of the final volume should leave the reader with the feeling that he has gone through the defining circumstances of Main Character's life. The leading character in a series can wander off into another book and a new adventure better even than this one. Main Character cannot, at the end of your multivolume work. (Or at least, it should seem so.) His life may continue, and in most cases it will. He may or may not live happily ever after. But the problems he will face in the future will not be as important to him or to us, nor the summers as golden. — Gene Wolfe

A story is a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it. — Donald Miller

Do remember, though, that unless you're a playwright, the result [dialogue] isn't what you want; it's only an element of what you want. Actors embody and re-create the words of drama. In fiction, a tremendous amount of story and character may be given through the dialogue, but the story-world and its people have to be created by the storyteller. If there's nothing in it but disembodied voices, too much is missing. — Ursula K. Le Guin

I think a writer's first job is to entertain, even in novels: to tell a compelling story that pulls the reader along toward an end. At the same time, the best stories are character-driven. — Noah Hawley

Every character in a story, I thought when I had folded up the phone, has both a purpose and a secret purpose. — Paul Park

Comedy always works better when you're tracking the story and you care about the characters. That's why there's a lot of movies where there's not a ton of jokes, but you get huge laughs because there's a moment of relief. — Andy Samberg

'Cars 2' is about a character learning to be himself. There's times in our lives where people always say, 'Well, you've gotta act differently. You should always be yourself.' That's the emotional core of the story. — John Lasseter

Another strand of my writing is the importance of the idea. If you think about fiction writing as a spectrum, where at one end of the spectrum in the infrared, are the story tellers, and the people for whom creation of wonderful characters and telling a good story is the most important thing. — Alan Lightman

We could have been the greatest love story ever told.
If only you'd stayed in character. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

If you're going to have a character appear in a story long enough to sell a newspaper, he'd better be real enough that you can smell his breath. — Ford Madox Ford

He must shape simultaneously (in an expanding creative moment) his characters, plot, and setting, each inextricably connected to the others; he must make his whole world in a single, coherent gesture, as a potter makes a pot ... — John Gardner

When you came right down to it, how did anyone know they weren't a character in some writer's story, or a transient thought in some bus-riding schmoe's head, or a momentary mote in God's eye? — Stephen King

'Dragon Age' needs to have big story moments. It is a game about character first, and the party is an absolutely central part of that. I want to keep pursuing interactivity with the world: taking crowds to the next level or having things catch fire because you indiscriminately cast a fireball into a wheat field. — Marc Laidlaw

Main characters never die in books. If they did, the story would be ruined, or over."
"Everybody is a main character to someone. There are no minor characters. — Amy Harmon

What is more important is finding the soul of the character, and making sure it fits well into this story. And that it be dramatic and interesting and captivating, because these people weren't entertainers, you know. — Mary Stuart Masterson

You don't encounter anyone who is not hero or villain of their own story. If it's man vs. self, you have to explore the ways each character is villainous and heroic. — Kit Williamson

It may seem unfashionable to say so, but historians should seize the imagination as well as the intellect. History is, in a sense, a story, a narrative of adventure and of vision, of character and of incident. It is also a portrait of the great general drama of the human spirit. — Peter Ackroyd

I think sometimes actors are drawn to good television because you have more time to sell it, you have more time to shape a character, and to tell a story, and that's really appealing. — Jamie Dornan

I can't recall a story that played out exactly as I'd expected it to. That's one of the thrills of journalism - being surprised, and learning new stuff, but it also poses the biggest challenge to a writer's character. — Dave Barry

There's also something happening in television similar to what happened in the '80s, when people stopped taking so many drugs and wanted to hear real instruments in music again. I think people want plot, story and characters. Those are more important than having a big star. — Jessica Pare

The truth, and nothing but the truth, is that dawn begins with a wrestling match with my soul and a systematic rejection of all the other useful possibilities a day offers. I make obeisance to the story, its characters, and the muse with burnt offerings. — Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor

A short story is ... frequently the celebration of character at bursting point. — V.S. Pritchett

I always loved comic books when I was growing up, and Spider-Man was definitely a character I gravitated towards because I loved the story of an average teenager having super powers. — Drake Bell

But keep characters in propinquity long enough and a story will always develop a plot. — Keith Miller

Sometimes it's less about the character and more about the story for me. I'll play a rock in the background if I think the story is fantastic and I can be a part of it somehow. That's what I look for. — Zoe Kravitz

Oftentimes
when I read a book,
I want to savor
each word,
each phrase,
each page,
loving the prose
so much,
I don't want it
to end.

Other times
the story pulls me in,
and I can hardly
read fast enough,
the details flying by,
some of them lost
because all that matters
is making sure
the character
is all right
when it's over. — Lisa Schroeder

Anne DeGrace is a gifted story teller and Far From Home contains some of her most intriguing characters. Thoroughly enjoyable. — Paulette Jiles

I'm not much of a believer in the so-called character story; I think that in the end, the story should always be the boss. — Stephen King

When I'm writing, I'm creating the story and its character with words. I'm thinking about what the pictures will be like, but I never begin to sketch. The pictures are all in my head. — Kevin Henkes

Sometimes I can't get out of the character because the story is very intense. — Diana Krall

The thing I'm writing now, I have various characters, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this couple dies. And they have a daughter ... I thought, 'OK, we have to do something with the daughter' ... then I realized she's not really their daughter. She has her own story. And she's become the most interesting character. She was this throwaway character that I didn't even conceive of before I started writing her into it, and now she's become very important in this book. — Sandra Dallas