Virtual Mentors II

Today's quote comes from an online workshop I took years ago with author and writing coach Gloria Kempton. It's not a recommendation to write toward a market, but rather an insight into the psychology of reading:

The trick to creating great characters is to make the character as much like the reader as possible so that there's immediate identification -- while at the same time making the character different enough so as to make the reader curious to find out more, since unconsciously he really knows he's reading about himself.