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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.

People seem to need a likable protagonist more than ever.

It's that kind of thing that readers have. I have it as a reader myself: that expectation that the writer will be that person. Then I meet other writers and realize that they're not.

Every human being has hundreds of separate people living under his skin. The talent of a writer is his ability to give them their separate names, identities, personalities and have them relate to other characters living with him.

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

Most good fiction also has a character the writer seems to know more deeply than anyone can actually be known in life, but a few unusual writers can make something great without that.

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

The reader is going to imprint on the characters he sees first. He is going to expect to see these people often, to have them figure largely into the story, possibly to care about them. Usually, this will be the protagonist.

You want to feel that your reader does identify with the characters so that there's a real entry into the story - that some quality speaks to the individual.

An author's characters do what he wants them to do.