Author Lisa Halliday, with Tonny Vorm for a Louisiana Channel interview:

Halliday: I begin with a character in the sense that I begin with someone I want to spend a lot of time with, with someone who has either a certain kind of brain, that reverberates with my brain, or someone who is interesting and for whom I can find a kind of aesthetic solution, as I flesh him or her out. So I do begin with a character, yes I begin with a character, I realize now, that you ask, 

Vorm: And do you know, when you start writing, where the story will take you?

Halliday: Yes, to a degree, maybe 70% of the way. Or rather I know where the story will take me, but I don’t know where I will stop telling it to the reader.

The idea that there are parts of the story that keep going in he mind of the author, untold to the reader, is fascinating to me.

As is the idea of conjuring characters that are fun to hang out with.