But once you open that door, you've got to go into the whole room. So we decided to handle the buffalo in a more visual way, really for the sake of brevity. By creating Lieutenant Dunbar, I could actually live it to an extent that surpassed my expectations. I am living it still. Tell our readers about the screenwriter's power to become a character.
Characters do come out of thin air.
I think writers acquire characters by living a life in which something is risked. It's only by being defeated, rejected, exalted, by going through all the peaks and valleys that you can acquire anything worth writing down. It's hard to do. When I was washing dishes in Arizona in 1988, I thought I was a failure as a writer. But I never had any idea of giving up writing.