Developing the character of Dawn

I was given a lot of freedom to develop Dawn. Joss was fairly clear. Basically, it was a 14 year-old girl who should speak like a 14 year-old girl, and nobody speaks like a 14 year-old girl like I do.

In terms of how she functions within the Buffy community, that I got to discover as I went about writing it. Willow is certainly the Favourite Aunt - Willow and Tara are the Aunt characters - and Giles that grown up that [she's] a little bit "I’m not really sure about him, he is an authority figure I’m not really sure about."

I got to play with that quite a bit and give her a little bit of background. In fact, some of the background I wrote [came] out of the script, but it still infused her character in future episodes.

It was fun writing someone who had a history that we know didn’t exist, but you know we can create anything. Any shared moments between [her and] Buffy that they had prior to this were just dark creations.