SOON was the first novel where I used a rough outline. Usually I have characters and an idea and write as a process of discovery. Like working without a net.
quote by Jerry B. Jenkins
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And when I'm writing, I write a lot anyway. I might write pages and pages of conversation between characters that don't necessarily end up in the book, or in the story I'm working on, because they're simply my way of getting to know the characters.
quote by Norton Juster
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In fiction, you have a rough idea what's coming up next - sometimes you even make a little outline - but in fact you don't know. Each day is a whole new - and for me, a very invigorating - experience.
quote by Peter Matthiessen
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It's life that matters, nothing but life — the process of discovering, the everlasting and perpetual process, not the discovery itself, at all. But what's the use of talking! I suspect that all I'm saying now is so like the usual commonplaces that I shall certainly be taken for a lower-form schoolboy sending in his essay on "sunrise", or they'll say perhaps that I had something to say, but that I did not know how to "explain" it. But I'll add, that there is something at the bottom of every new human thought, every thought of genius, or even every earnest thought that springs up in any brain, which can never be communicated to others, even if one were to write volumes about it and were explaining one's idea for thirty-five years; there's something left which cannot be induced to emerge from your brain, and remains with you forever; and with it you will die, without communicating to anyone perhaps the most important of your ideas.
quote by Dostoyevsky
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When I begin a book, I inevitably discover many things along the way, about the characters, their past histories and the political intrigues that surround them. This discovery process is vital, and I would not prejudice it by deciding too much in advance.
quote by David Brin
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You love all your characters, even the ridiculous ones. You have to on some level; they're your weird creations in some kind of way. I don't even know how you approach the process of conceiving the characters if in a sense you hated them. It's just absurd.
Before there was any talk of a movie, people would sometimes ask me what actors I would imagine playing these characters. And the only thing I could ever say is: I have such a clear idea of these characters that they'd have to play themselves.
quote by Michael Cunningham
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I don't much believe in the idea of characters. I write with words, that is all. Whether those words are put in the mouth of this or that character does not matter to me.
quote by Guillermo Cabrera Infante
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My first duty to write a gripping yarn. Second is to convey credible characters who make you feel what they feel. Only third comes the idea.
quote by David Brin
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A Molested Porcupine On My Head
Regarding the daily disintegration of my bad haircut
in awed astonishment, the moth-eaten ends forming
the outline of a badly battered mop
No amount of hair-spray, coaxing and determined blow-
waving can save the mutilated hair from resembling a
molested porcupine nestling on my head
Even greater my fascinated discovery that hubby thinks my
hair looks good, I made five backward somersaults in my
shock at his heresy, how strange the world
That he should like my Last-Of-The-Mohicans outline today,
I suppose I’m not a crocodile any more, more an electrified
hedgehog from now on...
poem by Margaret Alice
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Persuaded to Remember
Wouldn't it be a fantastic discovery,
If it was uncovered...
That the process of thought,
Was a natural occurrence.
And human beings could actually do this,
Independently.
To forget with a forgiveness!
And all bitterness,
Is dropped.
Without assistance to connect dots.
Or persuaded to remember,
Something in their minds to find...
With a need for recurring conflicts to stir,
Nonstop!
Wouldn't it be a fantastic discovery,
If it was uncovered...
That the process of thought,
Was a natural occurrence.
And human beings could actually do this,
Independently.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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I write easily, let's put it that way. And in a novel particularly, the characters take over. And they tell me what to say and they tell me what they're doing. And I'm a third of the way into a novel and then I just let the characters finish it for me.
quote by Andrew Greeley
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I mean when I was working shall we say with Disney, you know they sent me the script for the film Hercules and I had to imagine what all the characters looked like. And to develop those characters, so nothing exists visually when I get the script.
quote by Gerald Scarfe
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A Mirror Image
How many times when reading a book,
do we identify with the characters within?
Their traits they have we share,
their loves and heartaches
their lives go through somehow mirror our own.
It’s as if the author was writing about us.
As though he has put us under a microscope
and then writing down everything, he saw.
However, we know this isn’t so
because he or she has written
segments of their own life
and by accident they happen to mirror ours.
Every writer will tell you
that they have their characters under control.
Having written numerous novels,
I know the characters take on a life of their own
and do what they want to do.
We become their instrument as they guide us on our way.
We end up writing what they want us to say.
To every writer his characters are real,
they live, breathe and feel.
The more you write about them,
the more alive they become.
So the next time you pick up a book
and the characters seem real,
they probably are to the author
who looks after them.
24 September 2008
poem by David Harris
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My role in 'Legally Blonde' was really rewarding, because I had so much fun working on the movie. I've had really rewarding experiences on tiny low budget films that you'll never see but where I had a cool time creating characters as well. I love almost all of the characters I've played.
quote by Alanna Ubach
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For the novels I wrote before selling anything, I didn't outline much. I had a vague idea of the story.
quote by George Stephen
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Life is a process of working out what's not working for you and disentangling yourself from it and trying then not walk into the same thing again. Watching your patterns and correcting them if you can.
quote by Siobhan Fahey
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The research is the easiest. The outline is the most fun. The first draft is the hardest, because every word of the outline has to be fleshed out. The rewrite is very satisfying.
quote by Ken Follett
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But, when Scripture makes a clear distinction between the act of creation and the process of preservation, we cannot accept the idea of a progressive creation process.
quote by Walter Lang
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Not Conscious Of Its Acceptance
I have an idea!
Let's all pretend,
What is happening,
Isn't.
'Is that the best you can do?
We've been doing that for years.
That's how we got into this mess.'
Well...
Let's all pretend,
To be disconnected from it.
The mess.
'There is just one problem.'
What is it?
'How can we excuse our involvement,
Without acknowledging...
We were not conscious of its acceptance? '
I have another idea.
'What is it? '
We can always say,
We didn't exist when the 'mess' was implemented.
'I have an idea.'
Good!
Let's hear it.
'Why don't you keep your ideas to yourself.
And implement a nonthinking process.
I'm willing to bet,
'That' will be accepted.'
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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I often find that having an idea in my head prevents me from doing something else. Working is therefore a way of getting rid of an idea.
quote by Jasper Johns
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