A little light on the RPG elements but heavy on action, 'Mass Effect 2' was the game that created a world of characters that I actually cared about. When it came down to making those tough decisions during the final mission, I actually had to put the...
The woeful tales of 'Super Mario Bros.' and 'Street Fighter' have taught studios that merely slapping a name to a movie is not enough to bring in the fans of the franchise. Also, the way games now unfold their stories more parallels that of a movie, ...
I don't mean to step on anyone's toes, and I don't mean to seem arrogant, but if you want to be foreverly remembered as anything great you have to live your life alone, hated, ignored, and character assassinated, and if you believe this to be true th...
Ah, the boo. The boo is the most maligned, gossiped about, ridiculed figure in the pantheon of prison characters. Boo, which is short for the street term "booty call," is the casual girlfriend, the cheap feel in the sally port, the temporary object o...
'Seize the Story' takes readers all the way through the process of writing fiction, from beginning to end. Every element, from dialogue to setting, plotting to character creation, is laid out and illustrated with examples. But the tone of the book is...
One is made by all the things around one. There are many things that have made one. For a writer to go around looking for things that have made him is asking for trouble. It's like giving a character to yourself. Can't do it. Can't do it. These thing...
I write fast. But it takes me a while to get going. It's very important for me to see my whole plot. I have to see the end first because I like a surprise in the end. Which is why I let characters and plot gestate in my mind.
One's character is set at an early age, son. The choices you make now will affect you for the rest of your life." He was quiet for a minute then dropped the curtain and said, "I hate to see you swim out so far you can't swim back.
It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.
When a human being becomes a set of data on a website like Facebook, he or she is reduced. Everything shrinks. Individual character. Friendships. Language. Sensibility. In a way it’s a transcendent experience: we lose our bodies, our messy feelings...
I'm so excited about 'Shattered;' it's something I've really enjoyed working in, and it's very different from anything I've done before. I've always been a character actor and done a lot of support work. I've never really been the lead actor, so I'll...
I read a blog about this young filmmaker in the Philippines who made a short film, and one of the characters in the film reads my novel and then starts discussing the novel with someone. The idea that my book can inspire another artist and be part of...
If you look at most women's writing, women writers will describe women differently from the way male writers describe women. The details that go into a woman writer's description of a female character are, perhaps, a little more judgmental. They're l...
When you're traveling constantly, every day you become inspired, and it shows in my work, sonically, lyrically, visually. Conversations with women with different accents and stories told in those accents. I like to create characters based on differen...
Pimp Lester: [pointing gun at Oleg] Say hello to my little friend! Joey Gazelle: That's real fuckin' original. What are you, a fuckin' cartoon? Pimp Lester: I'm a Mack Daddy pimp! You know that. And now I'm gonna cap your ass, and when I'm finished w...
Be a good listener in the special way a story requires: note the manner of presentation; the development of plot, character; the addition of new dramatic sequences; the emphasis accorded to one figure or another in the recital; and the degree of enth...
Whom one is speaking to - or which aspect of their character - fundamentally determines the meaning and consequences of an exhortation. 'Indulge Your Desires' comes across very differently on a billboard advertising SUVs than it does spray-painted ac...
For the vision of a novelist is both complex and specialised; complex, because behind his characters and apart from them must stand something stable to which he relates them; specialised because since he is a single person with one sensibility the as...
Aren’t all fairy tales based in fact? You yourself are supposed to be nothing more than a myth. Pandora’s box is a story parents read to their children at night,” she countered. “That means life itself is a fairy tale. Like the characters, we...
My self-wroth is not linked to your cruel words and actions. My self-esteem is not affected by your deliberate attempts to destroy my character. You have no power over me. You will not silence me.
As the new work fills my notebooks, I've come to realize that the characters in my stories were so real because I really did want to get close to people, I really did want to know them. It was just easier to do it on paper, one step removed.
