what draws me to fiction
5th July 2016 | for Creatives | characters, writing, Heidi Pitlor |
"That's probably what draws me to fiction: It feels like the most elastic place to explore people. And probably the most forgiving place."
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as if you are this person
"It's this funny headspace you get in, where you're acting, really. .... You literally pretend you are this person, and you go about your life as if you are this person. And so, when people will ask me, 'Did you like this character?' I don't know. Because I'm so far inside them, I can't judge them at all. You're behaving as if you are this person."
Listen to the Demands of the Story
"If elements of my own life sift themselves into the plot, it's because they feel organic to the story I am telling—a story that distinctly belongs to the characters and not to me. I try to listen to the demands of the story and stay true to them."
Get to Know Your Characters 2
"We get to know our characters the way we get to know the other people in our lives: by spending time with them, by seeing how they interact with others and how they function under pressure, by learning how they see themselves and how they want to be seen."
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"I start with almost nothing: A question I want asked, or a feeling, a sort of weird conflicted feeling that I have and I want to explore. So I think all my books start that way. And then, as it always does, the book takes on a life of its own."