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It's really a misconception to identify the writer with the main character, given that the author creates all the characters in the book. In certain ways, I'm every character.

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

Sometimes, a writer 'character' is just a projection of a person who is writing the story, but not necessarily 'me.'

When I work on a novel, I usually have one character and a setting in mind.

I believe that, like most writers, my personality comes through in the fiction. So in that respect my writing can't be like any other author's really.

I think that fiction writers can write about anyone. If you are writing a character, and the only thing they are to you is their otherness, then you haven't written a character.

There are very few works of fiction that take you inside the heads of all characters. I tell my writing students that one of the most important questions to ask yourself when you begin writing a story is this: Whose story is it? You need to make a commitment to one or perhaps a few characters.

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.

I think all characters are facets of the writer. In a way, they have to be if you're going to write them convincingly.

When one is writing a novel in the first person, one must be that person.