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People seem to need a likable protagonist more than ever.

For an author, the nice characters aren't much fun. What you want are the screwed up characters. You know, the characters that are constantly wondering if what they are doing is the right thing, characters that are not only screwed up but are self-tapping screws. They're doing it for themselves.

I tend to gravitate toward conflicted characters, and a character who is exploring chaos theory and population control and the difficulties of love and family is pretty rich.

I'm interested in flawed protagonists. I was raised on them.

Historically, in my generation, all of my heroes and heroines have had issues and problems. We all do.

If the reader is rooting for the protagonist, they'll forgive you just about everything else.

That's what makes a character interesting from an actor's perspective - the more screwed up, the better.

I'm a sucker for the big, gruff, distant, emotionally closed-off hero who sloooowly warms up to the feisty, awesome, sweet heroine.

I believe the most intricate plot won't matter much to readers if they don't care about the characters, especially in a series. So I try to focus hard on making each character, whether villain or hero, have an interesting flaw that readers can relate to.