My friend Michele Dorsey just shared her thoughts about characters and it started me thinking.

My father and I wrote a few books together and it wasn’t unusual during a meal in a restaurant for one of us to tap the other and say…. Look! Big Frank or The Lizard (or one of our characters) just walked in. The conversation would go from there…. he’s lost weight, no it’s just the clothes he’s wearing. Did he come on his motorcycle? It is still amazing to me that we could have these conversations without batting an eye, as if that someone across the room was a relative we hadn’t seen for a few days or years. Even minor characters had an entire life not on paper that we could discuss as easily as we talked about a family reunion. Sometimes you think…. this can’t be normal. Have I left reality? Then you say, who cares.

(To read all of Michele’s thoughts…. read her post at Missdemeanors.com)