My good friend Alexandra Sokoloff, who blogged here the other week, commented once over at Murderati that everyone plotted to a certain degree, and that my first drafts were actually a detailed outline. Right. All 80,000 words of my first draft in a book that usually ends up around 105,000 words. At first, I was willing to concede the point, but recently I was struck by the fact that I really don’t plot my books. It’s not a method of writing I recommend or don’t recommend. It’s simply the way it is. I give a workshop called NO PLOTTERS ALLOWED… Read More

My good friend Alexandra Sokoloff, who blogged here the other week, commented once over at Murderati that everyone plotted to a certain degree, and that my first drafts were actually a detailed outline. Right. All 80,000 words of my first draft in a book that usually ends up around 105,000 words. At first, I was willing to concede the point, but recently I was struck by the fact that I really don’t plot my books. It’s not a method of writing I recommend or don’t recommend. It’s simply the way it is. I give a workshop called NO PLOTTERS ALLOWED… Read More

I love my agent and think she’s the greatest thing since the discovery that grapes can ferment into wine, but she doesn’t have a blog and I love agent blogs. I regularly visit Kristin Nelson at Pub Rants and Nathan Bransford and on occasion BookEnds and a few others. A few weeks ago, Curtis Brown agent Nathan Bransford solicited queries from both published and unpublished authors. On a whim (or a completely idiotic moment) I sent him the query I’d sent my agent Kim Whalen in December of 2003, for THE COPYCAT KILLER. For those who knew me then (Karin)… Read More

Okay, I’ll admit, I’m a news addict. When I worked in the legislature, one of the things I did every morning was read the headlines. My excuse: it was part of my job to keep informed on the important news and events of the day. I used facts in my writing about crime, education, taxes . . . and I liked to use anecdotal stories to illustrate or prove my facts. When I sold, I switched my news obsession to the publishing industry. It may surprise you to know that I now have to rely on my husband for important… Read More

I used to be addicted to television. From the time I was little, I knew the television line-up seven days a week. As I grew up, I planned my life around my favorite TV shows. Whether it was Little House on the Prairie early Sunday night or, Hills Street Blues Wednesdays at 10 (past my bedtime, but I convinced my mother I HAD to watch it,) or CSI on Thursdays, I had to be there. In fact, I didn’t have a VCR until I was married. So when I gave up television for three years, it was a huge sacrifice…. Read More

We talk a lot about heroes, heroines, and villains. But there’s a character that in many ways and in many stories is just as important as the protagonist and antagonist–and that’s the sidekick. The pal. The mentor. A secondary character who is important to either the protagonist or the story itself–or better yet? Both. I was thinking about this today when I posted something over at the Romantic Times message board about my character Dr. Hans Vigo. Hans was a throwaway character in my first trilogy, someone my FBI agents could call up for information. No one I had plans… Read More

I’m in the middle of reading CREATION IN DEATH, the latest JD Robb romantic suspense, and want to throw it against the wall. Not because the book sucks, but because after what? 24, 25, 26 books in this series this book is THE BEST. How in the world can she keep getting BETTER? Isn’t this like Seinfeld or The X-Files when you know the show is one of the best in history . . . but they just went a couple seasons too long? Well, take it from an IN DEATH fan, this series continues to get better and as… Read More

This one is for Jennifer . . . Over at my own blog the other day, I asked readers to post questions they want me to answer for my Q&A. Regular visitor Jennifer came up with one that is more appropriate to this forum. It’s something I’ve talked about in workshops I’ve given about romantic suspense, but really, this is relevant to ANY antagonist–even if they are not a serial killer. Jennifer asked if it was difficult to get into the mindset of my killers, who are decidedly creepy. My quick answer was: sometimes. But after I get to know… Read More

I’ve been thinking about pacing a lot lately. It started when I began revisions on TEMPTING EVIL. My editor liked the book, but felt the pacing in the first 100 pages was off–too slow, too much set-up. She had other comments and suggestions throughout, but the only MAJOR change was in the beginning. The thing is, you change the beginning and everything else changes. The last 350 pages could have been perfect, but by changing the beginning, most of the rest of the book had to completely go or be extensively rewritten. One editor once told me that there were… Read More

I’m listening to Stephen King’s ON WRITING on my iPod in the car. It’s not something I can listen to while writing–too interesting and distracting. For writing, I mostly listen to rock-and-roll or Irish folk music. I have my iPod divided into music “tone” by that I mean “hard” (Led Zeppelin, Lynard Skynard, Dropkick Murphys) to “medium” (U2, The Police, The Who) to “soft” (Elvis Costello, the Beatles, Pink Floyd.) I have an “Irish” group, dominated by Celtic Storm, Enya and Tommy Makem, and a “Faves” group which is quite eclectic and mixes my groups around. But for driving, I… Read More