Try not to become disappointed if someone doesn't like a story you've written. Stick up for your ideas, but listen to what other people say, too. They might have good advice.
Margaret MahyRead
In a way, the characters often do take over.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Characters in storytelling can sometimes dictate the direction of the narrative beyond the writer's original intent.
This quote by Margaret Mahy suggests that characters in a story can develop their own identities and motivations, leading to actions and developments that the author may not have initially planned. It highlights the dynamic relationship between writer and creation, where characters can become so vivid and realistic that they seem to have a life of their own, driving the plot in unexpected directions.
Themes
CharactersStorytellingNarrativeWritingArt
In practice
Example use cases
In a writing workshop, when discussing character development.
More from Margaret Mahy
All quotes βBeing a librarian certainly helped me with my writing because it made me even more of a reader, and I was always an enthusiastic reader. Writing and reading seem to me to be different aspects of a single imaginative act.
Margaret MahyRead
By the time ordinary life asserted itself once more, I would feel I had already lived for a while in some other lifetime, that I had even taken over someone else's life.
Margaret MahyRead
Of course there are big differences in length and character and vocabulary, but each level has its particular pleasures when it comes to the words one can use and the way one uses them.
Margaret MahyRead
When you are reading, someone has done a lot of work on your behalf, someone has had ideas and has then written and corrected and improved them so that they can be shared.
Margaret MahyRead
Perhaps every time anyone is praised it means that someone else somewhere is going to be ignored
Margaret MahyRead
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