stack of books and open notebook. Label: Quotation

Quotation: On Characters

Because it’s NaNoWriMo, all this month’s quotations will swirl around the general topic of writing fiction. Here’s a suggestion on how to get started.


“Once you create the character — if the character is really well done, complex enough and interesting enough — the character is going to create the story for you. . . . He or she is going to start doing things that are ‘in character’ as opposed to you just inventing it. You might want to go in one direction, then think, ‘This character would not do that!'”

Andrew Neiderman, ghostwriter of V.C. Andrews novels

2 thoughts on “Quotation: On Characters”

    1. Mary Daniels Brown

      Since I don’t write fiction, it has never happened to me. However, I’ve read about it lots of time. It must be exciting to you fiction writers.

Comments are closed.

Scroll to Top

Discover more from Notes in the Margin

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading