People come, people go – they’ll drift in and out of your life, almost like characters in a favorite book. When you finally close the cover, the characters have told their story and you start up again with another book, complete with new characters and adventures. Then you find yourself focusing on the new ones, not the ones from the past.
In the end you should always do the right thing even if it's hard.
All characters come from people I know, but after the initial inspiration, I tend to modify the characters so they fit with the story.
I do not use profanity in my novels. My characters all go to church.
None of my characters are rich or famous, and the situations they find themselves in could happen to anyone.
Is it possible, I wonder, for a man to truly change? Or do character and habit form the immovable boundaries of our lives?
Believe it or not, I don't collaborate with women, though my agent and editor are both females. For the most part, they do little editing on my characters.
Most characters are composed of snippets here and there of people I've known, and all rolled into the character I've created. They do become like their own people.
I want characters to have voices that feel authentic, unique, honest, fresh and original - all at once. Part of that authenticity is evoking genuine emotion across life - the sadness, passion, love, sense of loss, missed opportunities, and confusion even. All of this helps us realize that our choices do impact the lives that we eventually lead.
A book is maybe about 350 pages, and the prose allows for readers to get a glimpse into the internal lives of the characters. A screenplay is 120 pages, and it's all dialogue and action. The pacing of films is different, the structure is often different, and the internal lives of the characters must come across through the acting. Movies are just a different experience than reading - so it just depends on what an individual prefers.
While I find inspiration in real life, the actual stories are, thankfully, works of fiction - which, given the considerable turmoil in my character's lives, is probably a good thing!
I think, above all, the characters in my novels feel universal to the readers.
I've made the decision to adhere to three general truths when it comes to my novels: There will be a love-story element to the story, the novel will be set in eastern North Carolina, and the characters will be likeable. Then, I make each novel unique through differences in voice, perspective, age and personalities of the characters, and of course, plot.
I've done a number of films. I've been around this. I think the biggest challenge is just getting the script right, the way that you want the script to be. It's really about capturing the complexity of emotions and creating the kind of characters that people will want to watch every week.
That's a way to increase the realism to the reader, if you want to get technical - you leave it [character] vague and you let the reader fill in the blanks with their imagination.
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