Any writers out there who listen to their characters?

Sometimes I wonder whether I'm just writing for myself or if I have an audience. Occasionally, someone comments on one of my blogs or reviews, but most of the time, I feel like I'm just exercising my fingers.

Whatever the case, I wanted to take a break from my novel to comment on how the characters work in it. The story is set in Thailand, but I realized that for my own convenience, most of the characters are British or American. Yes, there are several Thais and I've worked hard to make them integral to the plot, but when I brought in a new character, I made him a mishmash of European, so he'd speak English.

Today when I was working on the story, I had this niggling feeling that this character was too much like the others and that I was being lazy. When I realized I was missing a very big part of the population in Southeast Asia who would have direct connection to Thais, I realized this man was Indian. And, yes, Victoria, he could speak fluent English.

All of a sudden, the character came alive with much more of a realistic placement in the story than he had before -- and man, did the scene I was writing spark with sexual tension. I hadn't planned on that!

Sometimes your characters tell you who they are. You just have to listen.