The interesting thing is, when you play a real-life character or someone based in a book, you always come up against people's preconceptions of what they have in their heads.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Readers of novels often fall into the bad habit of being overly exacting about the characters' moral flaws. They apply to these fictional beings standards that no one they know in real life could possibly meet.
Every reader knows about the feeling that characters in books seem more real than real people.
What I hate in fiction is when the author knows better than the characters what they should do.
There's always an anxiety about playing literary characters because one of the great joys of reading books is that you can create your own vision of things.
I know when I go and see a writer, the first thing I think to myself is, 'Are they the character in the book?' You just can't help it; it's the way people are.
All of my characters are a little bit based on people I know in real life. You know when you do that you have to change the character a little bit in case your friend or your relative reads the book, because you don't want them to know you wrote about them... They might get mad.
You never want to be in a position where your reader feels like you're passing judgment on your own characters. Any novel where you feel like the author is talking to the reader over the characters' heads is in a bad place.
Some of my books sort of have a provocative take. Sometimes you find interesting things about characters that show they weren't necessarily the way people usually see them. It can make for lively conversations, but that's great. Spark a little controversy, get people to think about it. That's what it's all about.
Sometimes I'll get a premise, you know, for a book. In fact, I get those quite often. And I don't commit to it until I really know the voice of that character. It's almost as if the character is speaking to me.
When you're playing a fictional character reacting to the real world, it's incredibly difficult and confusing and kind of messes with your values a bit.