I have nothing against lovable characters; there are a great many wonderful ones out there, and no one ought to go out of his or her way to deny a character's best qualities for the sake of being called “uncompromising, hard-edged.” But our first obligation is to create interesting, suggestive, realistic, possibly even challenging situations, set our characters down in them and see where they go. Which may not be the way you wish they could; rather it is the way, given who they are, they must go.

ROSELLEN BROWN