... that when we read fiction, we pour our own particular store of emotions--say, the sense of loss we feel for those disappeared from our lives--into the characters set before us. We take the few words with which the writer sketches these characters, the thing he said, the pain she felt, where they were, and our own emotional stockpile magically creates people. As the human eye fleshes out the pixilated image. Fictional characters are highly sophisticated Rorschach blots, and we, along with their author, are their authors. When you read a fictional character, you too are creating her.

-You or Someone Like You, Chandler Burr