As a reader, I often wondered at the myriad characters, plot twists, and details my favorite authors wove into their books. Now that I, too, am an author (I've been a writer for eons, but now my books are out, so I'm an author), I know that writing all that is just weird.

What am I talking about? Let me give you a few examples.

Yesterday I had coffee with three friends; one of them is a writer, Lane Dolly (check out her books). I don't remember how it happened, but we began to talk about how vocabulary (Lane's) and details (mine) showed up in our writing, when consciously we had no knowledge of those things until we saw them on the page.

I asked Lane if the strange vocabulary was specific to a character. She said it was, and my details of murdering and 1920s planes were, too. I had no better idea of where that knowledge came from than Lane, but I think it must be that the characters knew, and they managed to let us in on a few secrets as we wrote. Most likely in appreciation for creating them.

I used to marvel at writers who told me that their characters just appeared on the page and told their writers what they should be doing. Now I know they were telling the truth.

Which brings up a troubling question: do the characters create their writer instead of the other way around?