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I am a firm believer that a good plot makes for a fun enough read, but it's not what binds us. If we don't care about the characters, we won't care - not in a lasting way - about what's happening to them.

Part of me becomes the characters I'm writing about. I think readers feel like they are there, the way I am, as a result.

I wanted to give readers the feeling of knowing the characters, a mental image.

I think, above all, the characters in my novels feel universal to the readers.

The goal is to have every character take on a life of his or her own. Sometimes characters will come into the story that I haven't planned.

I'm not one of these 'the characters write themselves; the story just fell out of me' kind of writers. Wish it was like that.

Point of view gets me. If I can feel like a character rather than a reader, I'll read that book.

The reader is going to imprint on the characters he sees first. He is going to expect to see these people often, to have them figure largely into the story, possibly to care about them. Usually, this will be the protagonist.

The things I write about are completely removed from my own life, but people want to know the characters better.

There was no difference between my characters and the life my readers were going to have to face.