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Writers often say that characters begin to write themselves, and I never used to believe that. I always thought that was complete hogwash.

Every character a writer creates has some of themselves in it somewhere.

When you put your characters in a dire situation, they often do things that surprise even you, so you have to go back and revise your original conception of who they are.

Whoever undertakes to create soon finds himself engaged in creating himself.

Character isn't something you were born with and can't change, like your fingerprints. It's something you weren't born with and must take responsibility for forming.

I think every writer will tell you that their characters are always partially themselves: who I am and what I've experienced. It's always there in part of my characters.

Whether I build a character from the ground up or develop one, whether within my own copyright or in licensed work, I can step into that character's mind. It takes a kind of voluntary dissociation akin to method acting, military planning, marketing, or detective work: to think like the other guy and work out what he's going to do next.

Characters are often revealed by the ways they misapprehend others.

I write from this tight third-person viewpoint, where each chapter is seen through the eyes of one individual character. When I'm writing that character, I become that character and identify with that character.