“Character and Plot...Character and PlotSome writers have it and some do notThis I'll tell you BrotherYou can't have one without the other”

“Always I find when I begin to write there is one character who obstinately will not come alive...He never does the unexpected thing, he never surprises me, he never takes charge. Every other character helps, he only hinders. And yet one cannot do without him. I can imagine a God feeling in just that way about some of us. The saints, one would suppose, in a sense create themselves. They come alive. They are capable of the surprising act or word. The stand outside the plot, unconditioned by it. But we have to be pushed around. We have the obstinancy of non-existence. We are inextricably bound to the plot, and wearily God forces us, here and there, according to his intention, characters without poetry, without free will, whose only importance is that somewhere, at some time, we help to furnish the scene in which a living character moves and speaks, perhaps the saints with the opportunities for their free will.”

“Character is plot, plot is character.”

“Some days being a writer consists of telling yourself you aren't insane, your characters are.”

“You can't blame a writer for what the characters say.”

“I think writer is a word without gender, and a good writer observes, absorbs, hopefully empathizes then translates that into character and story.You don’t have to do or be or have experienced, traveled to, but you have to imagine all of that, very well–and believe it completely during the bubble of the work.”