Debbie
Debbie asked Craig Lancaster:

Your characters are always so full of depth, and the dynamics between family relationships really resonate with me, even when on the surface i have nothing in common with the character so i wondered if they are totally fictitious, loosely based on people or situations you've experienced, or a mix of everyone and everything?

Craig Lancaster Thanks so much for the question, Debbie. I'd have to say it's this big, jumbled mishmash of things, sometimes so complex that even I can't say what's imagination and pure theft from my own memories or experiences. The truth is that when I'm doing my best writing, the characters reveal themselves as much as I imbue them with particular traits or personalities.

Here's something I tell my writing workshops: Fiction is a three-part formula. It's memory plus experience plus imagination. Each story imposes the mix; if I were writing a story about made-up creatures in another world, imagination would be the dominant ingredient. A father-son story set in the American West leans more heavily on experience. And so on.

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