Try any goddam thing you like, no matter how boringly normal or outrageous. If it works, fine. If it doesn't, toss it. Toss it even if you love it.
Stephen KingRead
I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the writer's process of developing empathy for even the darkest characters before revealing their true nature.
Stephen King's quote emphasizes the importance of understanding complex characters in storytelling, particularly those who exhibit monstrous traits. By creating sympathy for these characters, the writer adds depth to their narratives, allowing readers to engage with the characters' struggles and ultimately showcasing the duality of human nature—the capacity for both goodness and evil.
Themes
SympathyCharactersMonstersStorytellingEmpathy
In practice
Example use cases
In a writing workshop, I might quote King to emphasize the importance of character development.
More from Stephen King
All quotes →Eddie discovered one of his childhood's great truths. Grownups are the real monsters, he thought.
Stephen KingRead
Hairstyles change, and skirt lengths, and slang, but high school administrations? Never.
Stephen KingRead
Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.
Stephen KingRead
That's the day's business. Thinking. Thinking and isolation, because it doesn't matter if you pass the time of day with someone or not; in the end, you're alone. He seemed to have put in as many miles in his brain as he had with his feet. The thoughts kept coming and there was no way to deny them.
Stephen KingRead
Late last night and the night before, tommyknockers, tommyknockers knocking on my door. I wanna go out, don't know if I can 'cuz I'm so afraid of the tommyknocker man.
Stephen KingRead
Similar quotes
There is this looking at the world as shapes and patterns and colors that have meaning, and you can't deny the superficial because the superficial is what meets the eye.
Wolfgang TillmansRead
What you have in your head, put down on paper. The head is a fragile vessel.
Dmitri ShostakovichRead
I don't want to think that the stories are finite; I want to feel that they can go on forever.
Steven MoffatRead
My writing has been largely concerned with the depicting of Negro life in America.
Langston HughesRead
You come in off the street, through the doors of the theater. You sit down. The lights go down and the curtain goes up. And you're in another world
Robert CaroRead
When I really have to push and grope and scratch and claw to make a story work, that's a telltale sign that maybe something conceptually isn't right.
David E. KelleyRead