Hunger Games

[Endovia]

Haha, yes. The best is when "your" characters tell you what to do.

[sapphire]

I've had that experience, too. But really, it is you creating them, if only subconsciously. And I think, for a character to be really true-to-life, their personalities and motivations have to be deliberate eventually. I used to just let characters plan themselves, and they were never very good characters, in the end.
Now, I tend to let them do what they want for a while, figure them out, then write them deliberately to fit that psychology. (I've had two minor characters in my novel decide they wanted to be major characters, and because they had cool personalities, I went with it. Now, I write them deliberately; in the beginning, it just happened.)

[Endovia]

Agreed. They need direction.