I think it’s an organic process. I don’t plot. I don’t plan. I start writing and characters and geography emerges. I find that in telling stories, the best laid plans go poof when your characters do what they want to do because you don’t control them—they become real and live their own lives. I certainly am influenced by the people I meet and the places I go to when I create my characters but it’s an intuitive thing, I just know who this person is or that person is and I know their name and I just know. And what I don’t know, he or she tells me.

I usually do start with setting. I try to build a fictional world, and then hope that the characters will walk into it.

Well, I don’t ever plan anything in my books. Since I don’t outline, I tend to just go wherever my imagination leads me and where I feel excited to write about. I tend to write scenes that I would want to read.

I start with a tingle, a kind of feeling of the story I will write. Then come the characters, and they take over, they make the story.

I do not plan my fiction any more than I normally plan woodland walks; I follow the path that seems most promising at any given point, not some itinerary decided before entry.

I usually begin with the idea of a character and then work on getting to know the character better. I’ve learned from actors that if I try to embody my characters physically, by walking, talking, and even dressing like them, then my characters become more real to me and therefore more believable on the page.

That’s what I like to do. I just start out and follow the characters.

I usually start from a concept, an idea, a form, a question, or a (sub)genre. Never a character or a setting. And I don’t write into nothing; I always have somewhere I’m directing my thoughts.

I'm not a writer who works off an outline. I don't do file cards. Some writers know where they're going when they sit down to write a novel. I know there are certain things I want to include, but I'm character driven and if the characters keep moving and living and growing on me, the story unfolds. It's like a puzzle which starts falling into place. But I never know where I'm going when I start.

I usually start with a character that interests me, or with some event that haunts me. I ask myself, "From whose point of view I am telling this story?" Some voice starts taking shape in my head, a certain way of talking, a tone. At its best the process is instinctive, organic, and musical. The story starts writing itself. (Callaloo, Fall 2008)

I tend to channel my characters and their needs first—that leads to dramatic situations—and then…I start writing and barf out pages. Next, I read what I have and find a glimmer of plot in there. Then I do it all over again with the plot driving the characters. You have to write a lot and throw out a lot and have fun with it.

I don’t plan things. As a rule I prefer to see what happens.

The first thing I figure out is the plot, and as it develops, the characters take shape. I believe the characters tell me their own stories.

…For acting, I have no other place to begin besides my body, history, memories, and cultural points of reference. In my process, I’m my foundation and then the research, and additional character development gets layered on top. For writing, I admit I’ve got an agenda and I start from what I know—me…