character creation

S32E6 – How Tropes and Clichés Play Into Reader Psychology

Plenty of masterpieces are just one cliché after another, Mozart for example, but that’s quite natural, because if you think about it, two clichés that have met one another can beget the most original and profound effect. – Thomas Ades

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S7E2 – How Do I Describe Characters Without Boring the Reader?

Good description is a learned skill, one of those primary reasons you cannot succeed unless you read a lot and write a lot. It’s not just a question of how-to, you see; it’s also a question of how much to. Reading will help you answer how much, and only reams of writing will help you with the how. You can learn only by doing. – Stephen King

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S22E7 – Fog and Flame: Character Development

I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose. – Stephen King

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S20E4 – Myth Four: Characters Control the Author

I craft everything in the beginning. I know where the characters are going before I start writing the book. – Ann Patchett

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S18E3 – Time for a Casting Change

My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play in it, for good or evil, before this is over. The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many. – J.R.R. Tolkien

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S14E8 – Artists with Travis Micheal

Every composer knows the anguish and despair occasioned by forgetting ideas which one had no time to write down. – Hector Berlioz

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S13E9 – All Characters Feel the Same

Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person. – F. Scott Fitzgerald

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S10E5 – Character History: Nurture

People – and characters – are made up of their past experiences. When crafting a character, one of the most important aspects we consider is her past. – Sky Fairwin

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