Sunday’s Snippets: Boy, Was He a Character!

Easy as A, B, C . . . from BB

Do your characters take action on their own? Do they say and do things you weren’t expecting. Have they stolen your story from you? Some famous writers in Jon Winokur’s book entitled W.O.W.: Writers on Writing ‑ in the section labeled “Characters” – weighed in on our imaginary friends:

“You can never know enough about your characters.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham

“If a writer is true to his characters they will give him his plot. Observations must play second fiddle to integrity.” ~ Phyllis Bottome

“I don’t feel sympathetic toward some characters, unsympathetic toward others. I don’t love some characters, feel contempt for others. They have attitudes; I don’t.” ~ Don DeLillo

“Begin with an individual and you find that you have created a type; begin with a type and you find that you have created‑‑‑nothing.” ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Of course I base my characters partly on the people I know‑‑‑one can’t escape it‑‑‑but fictional characters are over‑simplified; they’re much less complex than the people one knows.” ~ Aldous Huxley

See you day-after-tomorrow for Tuesday’s Tutor!