Excellent thoughts by some of my favourite writers. For me, the whole point of any story is to put yourself in someone else's shoes. Yes, my protagonists are inevitably informed by my own experience, but consciously creating a protagonist that is an avatar for the author is stifling and often dull. That's one reason why most of the protagonists in my gothic mysteries are female. These imperilled heroines cause me to take a step outside of myself, and make me to look at the world from a different and more imaginative perspective.