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Know Your Own Characters

"Know your own characters as surely and completely as you know yourself.  ....  If you know him so well that he is entirely real to you, your work is done, for he will act out his own story to its inevitable conclusion and you will only have to set it down."

Write It the Way You See It

"You just have to say, 'This is who this [character] is.  And I'm going to write it the way I see it and the way she feels it, and have faith that readers will follow."

You're Down There Alone

"Dubus frowns on writers' groups, believing they lead members astray from the work at hand.  His father told him that a novelist is like a whale submerged in the ocean.  You're down there alone, and you're supposed to be down there alone.  'It makes us face our own mortality,' he says.  'Working alone on a 300-to-400-page project for five years all by yourself brings you right to the starkness of coming into the world alone and leaving alone, as we all do.'"

Get to Know Your Characters

Write It the Way You See It

"You just have to say, 'This is who this [character] is.  And I'm going to write it the way I see it and the way she feels it, and have faith that readers will follow."