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Any fiction writer who assumes that a character is typical no doubt runs the risk of stumbling into cliche and stereotype.

I've always scribbled, and I still do it. I've written numerous scripts for films for which I think I'd be perfect as the complex, intelligent and, yes, modern heroine. Embarrassingly bad, all of them. I've had to come to terms with the fact that I'm not a writer.

When I was in school, I was always writing scripts and dressing up as characters. I'd constantly be that guy who'd get up on stage. I used to write imaginary TV shows, like soap operas, for fun.

Writing is much more satisfying on a certain level than acting ever was. Because you're not interpreting someone else's original idea, you can come up with your own.

Character development is what I value most as a reader of fiction. If an author can manage to create the sort of characters who feel fully real, who I find myself worrying about while I'm walking through the grocery store aisles a week later, that to me is as close to perfection as it gets.

Writing is a very strenuous thing - it's like banging your head against a wall. At the end of the day, acting is better, just because nobody ever asked me if I wanted a Pellegrino in the writer's room.

The problem with being a writer is that some readers tend to think that anything that comes out of a character's mouth is you talking.

I try to write characters that are as real, emotionally and psychologically, as I can make them; I feel the same way about setting. This often means that I'm drawing from my experiences and observations.

I never wanted to make a graphic novel. As soon as you become a 'writer,' you have to be intelligent all the time... I like the fact that I have the right once in a while to say silly things.

The only successful way to write, and the only one I have found, is to be the character. Give up on trying to control them. Writers always talk about hearing voices. That's what they mean.