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Fiction demands structures and recognizable shapes. Big surprises only draw attention to the writer's hand.

A novel can do something that films and TV usually can't - a glimpse inside the characters' heads. I write very tight third person point of view, so the reader is right behind the eyes of each character, seeing what they see and feeling what they feel.

Before I started to make films, I didn't give much thought to the way the characters were physically positioned in the story world.

How it works for me is that a scene comes to mind, usually a scene between the hero and heroine, that depicts the emotional conflict. From that scene, the characters come alive for me. I don't do a lot of preplanning in any way when I write.

Use description of landscape to help you establish the emotional tone of the scene. Keep notes of how other authors establish mood and foreshadow events by describing the world around the character.

It is the job of the novelist to touch the reader.

The screenplay has to be gripping. That's when the film will work. Then, I see how much I can relate to the character I'm playing.

One of the things that all authors of fiction must learn to judge is whether - and in what detail - to describe the face of a character.

You can read a character that feels amazing, but if the world around it and all the writing around it - even the way the stage descriptions are written - don't feel just right, then you know there's no point in doing the project. No character is ever bigger than the whole film.

My first duty to write a gripping yarn. Second is to convey credible characters who make you feel what they feel. Only third comes the idea.