If I've got one thing that I really believe about fiction and life, it's that there are no minor characters.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
There's always a bit of fiction in everything that I write.
My characters are fictional. I get ideas from real people, sometimes, but my characters always exist only in my head.
The interesting thing about fiction from a writer's standpoint is that the characters come to life within you. And yet who are they and where are they? They seem to have as much or more vitality and complexity as the people around you.
I don't generally read a lot of fiction.
Most of my stories, if not all of them, have some basis in real life. That's the kind of fiction I'm most interested in. I suppose that's one reason I don't have much respect for fiction that seems to be game playing.
Fiction connects: past and present; the great and the small; the surface with the depths. Fiction brings out the innermost, invisible springs of life that cannot be revealed in factual narratives.
There's a problem with narratives. Most that spring to mind are fictional.
One reason we love fiction is because stories have a comforting shape. They provide a resolution that's lacking in our regular lives.
Most fiction comes from your experience.
I've long been interested in the role of 'minor characters' in major events. This has been the focus of a lot of the fiction and nonfiction I've written.