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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.

I start with a character and a situation, but I don't know what's going to happen until I write it. Sometimes things happen that surprise me.

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.

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.

When the stories come easily and the writing process doesn't feel laboring, that's usually a good sign for me.

Writing is a mysterious process, and many ideas come from deep within the imagination, so it's very hard to say how characters come about. Mostly, they just happen.

Characters are incredibly important, but I tend to build them around the plot during the outline stage. However, once I'm writing the manuscript, the characters I'm writing dictate how the plot unfolds.

You can have the greatest characters in the world and write beautifully, but if nothing's happening, the story falls on its face pretty quickly.

I like to be surprised. The best writing is when it defies me, when it starts going a different way than I had planned.

When I'm happiest writing is just not knowing where it goes and just let the characters bring you there.