I would have to disagree with the sentiment that some people have--that authors have no control over their characters. Come on. The author has created the character. The author is in charge of the action and the dialogue. If it seems as if the character has come to life on his/her own, it's just your subconscious directing your fingers to type the words.
I occassionally hear of people saying 'the characters write themselves'... well, that would make for a great surrealist story, but is otherwise strange. If the characters write themselves, then they haven't created the character properly. It sounds to me like an excuse for not developing characters properly.
