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I'm always writing about character first. Plot, such as it is, comes from the characters.

I always start with characters rather than with a plot, which many critics would say is very obvious from the lack of plot in my films - although I think they do have plots - but the plot is not of primary importance to me, the characters are.

So I work hard to present the human side of my characters while not neglecting the plot.

For the most part, there's so much of me in my characters.

I tend not to know what the plot is or the story is or even the theme. Those things come later, for me.

Whichever character I'm using and wherever I am in my mind dictates what kind of story I'm going to tell.

I'm really quite bad at coming up with plot ideas. I like to create characters and just see what will happen to them when I let them loose!

Characters are incredibly important, but I tend to build them around the plot during the outline stage. However, once I'm writing the manuscript, the characters I'm writing dictate how the plot unfolds.

I don't plot my novels - I move along with my characters.

I believe the most intricate plot won't matter much to readers if they don't care about the characters, especially in a series. So I try to focus hard on making each character, whether villain or hero, have an interesting flaw that readers can relate to.