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You can't really write until the characters kind of show up one day and tell you what they're going to say. You start to hear the rhythm of the way the people talk, and then it becomes easier.

My process is kind of intuitive - I think about how a character will speak according to their station and personality, occasionally making notes with guidelines for their mannerisms, and then I just sort of crack on and write it.

Anytime you take on a character... you just have to find the parts of the character that you can understand.

Character and story are suggested by the voice in the words themselves.

I've dropped myself into straightforward character pieces in order to explore that form and reap its values. But you are sort of restricted visually when your first requirement is to tell a fairly straightforward story.

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.

It's usually easier for me to begin writing in a character's voice if that person is different from me in some significant way.

As I read, I start to form clear ideas of the characters and allow myself to be a proper conduit for this author's voice so that you will feel you have been on a seductive audio journey.

Often the starting point for characters, for me, is finding a little, most minor detail, and I'll go from there.

You've got to internalize the character. You've got to learn the words. These are separate things, but they work together.