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How do you create the characters in your books, and how do you think up their names?

Well, the books and the characters and stories and settings all develop together. I start with a small idea — small piece of a character or setting, and as I write, all aspects of a story develop from there. Names are always a little difficult. Right before my daughter was born, my wife and I got a book called 10,000 Baby Names, and I still look through that book when I look for names. The kids of Wayside School are all named after kids in an elementary school where I worked while going to college. And then the nicknames in Holes were just fun names to think of.