Last week (yeah, I'm waaay behind on my blog reading) Nathan Bransford raised an interesting question, talking about writing characters and the claim that some authors make that characters come to life and take over the story. Between Gaiman's talk a few weeks ago, the workshop I was preparing for, and the books I've been writing, I've been thinking about this a lot, especially as I hanker after those writing sweet spots where the characters DO come alive and write themselves.

Because for me, ...