Book-buyers aren’t attracted, by and large, by the literary merits of a novel; book-buyers want a good story to take with them on the airplane, something that will first fascinate them, then pull them in and keep them turning the pages. This happens, I think, when readers recognize the people in a book, their behaviors, their surroundings, and

Write what you like, then imbue it with life and make it unique by blending in your own personal knowledge of life, friendship, relationships, sex, and work. Especially work. People love to read about work.

some sense with each character in a novel a real person is created (with Tess, Thomas Hardy was to fall in love with his own heroine), but more accurately, each author is creating an illusion of a person, because they are telling a tale, and all they need is for that illusion to be convincing, for that fictional person to seem real for the reader.