I like westerns, fantasy, sci-fi, graphic novels, thrillers, and I try to avoid the word 'genre' altogether. A good book is a good book.
A really great popcorn movie is extremely hard to pull off. A really great popcorn book is equally hard to pull off, so I don't feel guilty devouring one.
A great thriller, to me, is more about creating a sense of unease: a queasiness that comes with knowing something is not quite right.
That's always been part of my goal - to show the dark side of women. Men write about bad men all the time, and they're called antiheroes.
What I read and what I go to the movies for is not to find a best friend, not to find inspirations, not necessarily for a hero's journey. It's to be involved with characters that are maybe incredibly different from me, that may be incredibly bad but that feel authentic.
A theme that has always interested me is how women express anger, how women express violence. That is very much part of who women are, and it's so unaddressed. A vast amount of literature deals with cycles of violence about men, antiheroes. Women lack that vocabulary.
One of my rules about writing exercises is you never are allowed to put them in your book because it's just too tempting. You try to shoehorn things that don't belong.
I liked the idea of a whodunit revolving around a marriage.
I grew up in a house full of books.
I find, the older I get, the more surprised I am about how hesitant people are to say what they really want, what they really dream about, what really drives them. It's as if sometimes we're sort of embarrassed, as we get older, to be transparent about that. But you save so much time if you're transparent about what you want.
I just think - the Midwest, if you grow up there, you're deathly afraid of putting on airs. Any time a Midwesterner criticizes someone, it's usually involving some form of being too big for your britches.
I love a good worst-case scenario. My brain just kind of works that way. I like that idea of how much a person can get away with, and why.
Even good characters have their dark sides, and I think it is important that women aren't seen as innately good.
I'm probably a guy's girl, although I hate that phrase. I tend to have more close male friends than I do female friends, and I always have. I would say that of my 10 close friends, seven are men.
I am not someone who has hobbies. I have tried knitting, and I can't figure it out.
The number of mystery and horror writers I've met who are just the sanest and the nicest people... it's crazy. Maybe it's because the writing gets something out of the system?
The best crime reporters don't mind charging in - but they also know how to do it as decent human beings.
One of my biggest peeves is when the writer hasn't given you enough information to figure everything out. You should be able to go back to the beginning of 'Gone Girl,' after you've already read it and you know everything, and say, 'Check - check - yes, she gave us that information.'
For me, suspense is always harder and better than going for the quick, outright scare.
I've never been interested in watching or reading anything because it's the hero's story. I don't feel the need to be inspired by the character or learn a lesson. I feel the need to be engaged by them.
