When a book is just a plot, you know, two men fight for the love of a woman in a wild frontier, I immediately ask, 'Why?'
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I think it's a question which particularly arises over women writers: whether it's better to have a happy life or a good supply of tragic plots.
In suspense novels even subplots about relationships have to have conflict.
There's almost always a point in a book where something happens that triggers the rest of the plot.
I always try to create conflict and drama in my books; it's the engine of the novel.
The beginning of a plot is the prompting of desire.
Sometimes female characters start out as the wife or girlfriend, but then I realize, 'No, she's the book,' and she becomes a main character. I surrender the book to her.
Fiction should be about moral dilemmas that are so bloody difficult that the author doesn't know the answer.
It's so often that I read for the bouncy, sunny girl men fall in love with who will solve all the romantic problems in the narrative. I don't choose to work that way.
Women want love to be a novel, men a short story.
I love the novel because it's like a love affair. You can just fall into it and keep going, and you never know where it's going to take you.