Plot is tremendously important to me: I can't stand books where nothing happens, and I can't imagine ever writing a novel without at least one murder.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The only book worth writing is the book that threatens to kill you.
My books are primarily plot driven but the best plot in the world is useless if you don't populate them with characters that readers can care about.
When I started writing the third book, 'The Kill,' the intention was just to write a thriller, a crime novel for myself, really, in which there would be no body, no solution - where you would look at an event from different people's perspectives.
I love novels where not much 'happens' but where the interest is in the ideas and analyses of characters.
Even if I never sold another book, I'd keep writing, because the stories are here, in my head. Stories that just need to be told. I love watching a plot unfold, and feeling the surprise when the unexpected happens.
Two things I do well in books are sex and violence, but I don't want gratuitous sex or violence. The sex and violence are only as graphic as need be. And never included unless it furthers the plot or character development.
I don't really consider any of my novels 'crime' novels.
I get very tired of violence in crime fiction. Maybe it is what life is like, but I don't want to do it in my books.
I don't like novels that tie everything up in a plot-y way. I always think that's not really true of life, particularly of people in power.
I never plot out my novels in terms of the tone of the book. Hopefully, once a story is begun it reveals itself.