I was wandering back from the Indian takeaway with a Chicken Pathia in the bag last night, head stuck in the book I'm writing as usual, when a conversation popped into my head. It was an argument between two characters discussing, roughly, why their world had gone wrong. One of them, commenting on something the other had just done, said, 'You should set a better example.'

You hear that a lot, don't you? It's one of the things we take for granted. The other character is the sort who questions everything though. He/she responds (roughly)...
<blockquote>'Better examples? <em>Better examples?</em> You've got Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Mother Teresa of Calcutta and a million others out there already. Who needs one more? And from <em>me?</em>'</blockquote>
Reasonable point. To that character anyway. Maybe even an argument that will make its way into the book, not that this is why I reproduce it here. What I want to do is talk about the art of the interior conversation, and how it helps me shape a story.

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Do all authors talk to themselves? I think so, even if they don't admit it. Part of this strange job is the creation of (hopefully convincing) characters who take on a life of their own, run around your own head, then pop onto the page reasonably fully formed ready to kid the reader they're real too.

Most books aren't silent movies. Real characters communicate. So writers need some way to recreate the dialogue between the people in their books <em>inside and outside the book itself.</em> Understand what I'm saying here? I need my people to talk to one another constantly, making everyday small talk that never finds its way to the page. I need them to live inside me before I can reproduce them to the world at large. There are few better ways to do this than to cultivate the habit of the interior conversations. Talking to yourself, out loud or in silence, in the character of the people you're inventing The kind of habit that once got you committed to lunatic asylums when they still existed.

Here's an example. When I'm in Rome I love spending time in little, local cafés. I listen to the people there, I talk to them. I almost always learn something. Roman cafés are places for conversation and, on occasion, argument. Football, Silvio Berlusconi and the general state of the world are subjects that are guaranteed to generate a squabble, usually, though not always, a genial one.

The game I play is simple. I imagine that my four main characters -- Nic Costa, Gianni Peroni, Leo Falcone and Teresa Lupo -- are in the café with me, and then try to work out what their contribution to this particular argument would be. Let's say, for example, that Lazio have just beaten Roma at football and someone at the bar has voiced the opinion that this means Lazio are the better side who will sweep all before them for the rest of the season. Being good citizens of the <em>centro storico</em> (the heart of Rome) all four find this blasphemous, of course. But they're different characters, and would have their own responses. Roughly this...

Nic Costa is a very decent, reasonable and intelligent young chap who likes to put his point of view across but in a way that doesn't involve confrontation. And also he's not terribly interested in any sport except rugby. He'd shrug and say something like…
<blockquote>'It's only football. Now if you want to talk Italy versus Ireland next week…'</blockquote>
Gianni Peroni is older, emotionally intelligent, likes to hold his own but can sidestep an argument if he wants.
<blockquote>'Ah, but it's only October. If you remember two seasons ago they whipped us in autumn and we whipped <em>them</em> and won Serie A the same year.'</blockquote>
Leo Falcone would want to slap the man down, but, being more than a touch arrogant, would feel it beneath him to enter in argument directly. He'd tap Peroni or Costa on the shoulder and say…
<blockquote>'Go tell that idiot to shut up.'</blockquote>
Teresa Lupo doesn't suffer fools gladly either but would never dream of asking someone else to do her dirty work. She'd simply march over, prod the guy in the chest and say…
<blockquote>'People like you make me wonder if Darwin got it wrong all along and the human race is really getting stupider by the day.'</blockquote>
Four different people, four different responses.

None of this would make it into a book. But by inventing these conversations in my own head I help to refine and differentiate my characters. If all of them had the same response then alarm bells would be ringing.

Interior conversations are an odd habit, and one I never had when I began this strange game. But over the years they've become second nature, and I always make a point of noting them down, usually in the diary I write alongside every new work. Perhaps ten or twenty per cent of them find their way into the final book. But that's not important. They're part of the foundation, the architecture that underpins the characters inside a story. These silent, slightly batty dialogues help define the people I'm trying to bring to life.