"I write easily, let's put it that way. And in a novel particularly, the characters take over. And they tell me what to say and they tell me what they're doing. And I'm a third of the way into a novel and then I just let the characters finish it for me"
About this Quote
Andrew Greeley describes a novelist's paradox: authority gained through surrender. He writes easily because he trusts the life he has already breathed into his characters. By the time he is a third of the way into a book, the story has established its premise, its conflicts, and the desires of the people on the page. From there, the logic of those desires and conflicts generates its own momentum. The author stops forcing outcomes and starts listening.
That turning point roughly matches classic narrative structure. Around the end of Act I, a protagonist commits to a course of action; the rest of the plot emerges from the consequences of that commitment. Saying the characters take over is another way of saying that cause and effect, rooted in personality and choice, begin to dictate what must happen. It is not abdication of craft, but confidence that careful set-up will yield inevitable development. The ease Greeley claims is the ease of fluency, earned by long practice and a clear sense of human behavior.
His background makes that stance believable. A priest and sociologist, he spent his life listening to people tell messy, heartfelt stories. That professional habit of attention becomes an artistic method: let people reveal themselves, and follow where their words lead. He was also famously prolific, and a character-driven process helps sustain productivity by keeping the writer curious rather than prescriptive.
There is a psychological dimension too. Many writers describe a flow state in which the subconscious takes the lead. Once a character is vividly imagined, the brain simulates what that person would plausibly do, and the sensation is less invention than recognition. Greeley frames that sensation as dialogue with his own creations. The humility of letting them finish the novel is really faith in the moral and emotional coherence he has already established. For readers, that trust often translates into stories that feel alive, surprising, and strangely inevitable, as if the author discovered rather than devised them.
That turning point roughly matches classic narrative structure. Around the end of Act I, a protagonist commits to a course of action; the rest of the plot emerges from the consequences of that commitment. Saying the characters take over is another way of saying that cause and effect, rooted in personality and choice, begin to dictate what must happen. It is not abdication of craft, but confidence that careful set-up will yield inevitable development. The ease Greeley claims is the ease of fluency, earned by long practice and a clear sense of human behavior.
His background makes that stance believable. A priest and sociologist, he spent his life listening to people tell messy, heartfelt stories. That professional habit of attention becomes an artistic method: let people reveal themselves, and follow where their words lead. He was also famously prolific, and a character-driven process helps sustain productivity by keeping the writer curious rather than prescriptive.
There is a psychological dimension too. Many writers describe a flow state in which the subconscious takes the lead. Once a character is vividly imagined, the brain simulates what that person would plausibly do, and the sensation is less invention than recognition. Greeley frames that sensation as dialogue with his own creations. The humility of letting them finish the novel is really faith in the moral and emotional coherence he has already established. For readers, that trust often translates into stories that feel alive, surprising, and strangely inevitable, as if the author discovered rather than devised them.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
|---|
More Quotes by Andrew
Add to List
