The interesting thing about Bettie Page that I discovered was to leave the mystery. She always retained a little mystery. Let there be some unknowns.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
There is nothing better than a really cool mystery: you don't know what's going to happen, so you keep turning those pages or watching that series.
If the book is a mystery to its author as she's writing, inevitably it's going to be a mystery to the reader as he or she reads it.
People were always able to look at Bettie Page and see what they needed her to be and she gave them that permission to do so. So in that way she's a feminist but I don't think she was ever trying to be.
What was it about Carolyn that made her so cautious about revealing herself?
You know the thing that interests me about 'Unsolved Mysteries?' It's because there are people out there, people who know something, who may have the one final clue.
Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise.
Nobody reads a mystery to get to the middle. They read it to get to the end. If it's a letdown, they won't buy anymore. The first page sells that book. The last page sells your next book.
One of the hopes we have when we hear or read an interview with a mystery writer is to get inside the writer's head, to learn something we didn't know before.
If I knew a story page by page before I started writing it, I just wouldn't do it. The process of discovery is really important for my own enjoyment.
I want the reader to know what's going on. So there's never a mystery in my books.