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And the nice thing about writing a novel is you take your time, you sit with the character sometimes nine years, you look very deeply at a situation, unlike in real life when we just kind of snap something out.

All you can do is focus on telling the best story you can with compelling characters. If you do it right, it will endure. If you do it wrong, it won't.

You'll work hard to create characters that are compelling and unforgettable. But in the end, it's the story that matters.

In real life, people are constantly saying one thing and doing another, but if you write your characters that way, the story becomes too hard to follow.

Characters are so important to a story that they actually decide where the story is going. When I write, I know my characters. I know how things are going to end, and I know some important incidents along the way.

To combine telling an interesting story with brilliantly written characters is the most difficult thing to do.

It may sound very strange, but I love the freedom that writing a novel gives me. It is an unhindered experience. If I come after a bad day, I can decide that my protagonist will die on page 100 of my novel in a 350-page story.

I'm constantly being surprised and finding unplanned things - because the writing is a process of experiencing things on the ground with the characters.

I like to be surprised. Fresh implications and plot twists erupt as a story unfolds. Characters develop backgrounds, adding depth and feeling. Writing feels like exploring.