The bio on your web site reads: “My main characters are all aspects of my own personality, although their stories are very different from my own. Still, I find that I approach the heroines as if I were a Method actress.” Could you give us an example from one of your novels, say, Missing Pieces?The best way to get readers to become emotionally invested in a character is to get them to identify with that character. To do that, you have to make the character as real and believable as possible. I don't think I'm all that different, on a basic level, from most women, so in order to make my characters more real, I try to think what I would do were I in their position, how I might react if this were happening to me, or somebody was talking to me in a particular way. As with "method" acting, it's not so much you becoming another character as it is making the character you. In Missing Pieces, for example, this was relatively easy because Kate was a character not that much different in age than I was at the time and she was going through a lot of the things I was dealing with, including teenage daughters and hot flashes. I was able to draw on many things from my own life, and that made it easier to extrapolate on how I might react to the more
farfetched and frightening things happening in Kate's life, such as mothers with Alzheimer's and sisters falling in love with serial killers.
You once said “the whole act of creating characters is an act of love.” How does this apply to abusive, evil, or criminally insane characters? How do you relate to your villains and antagonists?
It's funny, I don't remember saying that, but I guess it's true. I love the whole act of creating, and villains are no different in this respect than heroes and heroines. In fact, sometimes they're more interesting, and usually they're a lot more fun. You don't actually have to love the character or what he/she is doing, but you have to be true to them. You have to understand them and where they're coming from, the things that made them the way they are. This usually has to do with their childhoods and the way they were raised, so you have to know everything about them. Generally speaking, people don't start out bad, although there are genuine sociopaths who lack the empathy gene. So, I always find my villains interesting and complicated individuals deserving of my respect, if not my love. And I can't wait to see what they'll do next.
Do your characters ever appear in your dreams? Have you ever been creeped out or haunted by any of them?
Thus far, my characters have never appeared in my dreams – what an interesting concept – and no one has jumped off the page to haunt me, although I do occasionally find them creepy.
You’ve said that you reach a point in the writing process where the characters tell you what they’re going to say or do. Could you elaborate on this?
It's very hard to explain this to somebody who isn't a writer. It's like asking writers where they get their ideas. The simple truth is that's just the way our minds work. We see ideas for books everywhere. The hard part is figuring out what to do with those ideas. Similarly, once you start writing, the first half of the book is always trickiest, at least for me. That's where you're putting all your ducks in the water, and getting them all in a row. Once you've set things up, once you've started the ball rolling – pardon the mixed metaphors – it gets a little easier. If you've created real, believable characters, things just start falling into place. It's a lot like having children in this respect. You create these miraculous little people, you raise them with your values and ideas, and then at a certain point, they start thinking and doing for themselves. They stop listening to you. When you create a fictional character – particularly one of the more important characters – you have to know everything about them. You have to know their histories from the moment they were born, what kind of upbringing they had, what their parents, and even their grandparents, were like, what kind of schools they went to, the kind of friends they had. Even if not a word of this is in the book itself. If you don't, if the character is essentially born the age she is in the novel, she won't make sense. The character won't ring true. You see this all the time. Writers, like everyone else, are very fond of shortcuts. But they don't work in the long run. And the more you know about your character, the more they know about themselves, and the more independent they become. So, yes, at a certain point in the novel, particularly in the last quarter, the character starts thinking, speaking, and doing for themselves. You are no longer in charge. You may have envisioned a chapter to go a certain way, with the heroine acting in a certain manner, but by the time you get there, it no longer works. Whether that's the character or your subconscious talking, it doesn't really matter, but when it does, it's a great relief.
Several of your novels – including Missing Pieces, Whispers and Lies, and Heartstopper–feature menopausal or perimenopausal women. What issues are you exploring with respect to how society treats women over forty?
I didn't set out to explore these issues, and to be truthful, I've never really experienced this feeling of "invisibility" that a lot of my post-forty heroines do. I've always felt pretty visible, although it is a bit of a shock when you realize that the young men you find attractive don't really notice you, or if they do, it's certainly not in any kind of sexual context. But as I've gotten older, and more interesting, I like to think, I naturally gravitated toward older characters. They give the books a different kind of energy and point of view, although I think it's important to represent all the generations. I do think that in general, once a woman passes a certain age and is no longer viewed as a sexual object by the masses, she does lose some of her power – unless she's rich. And as I've said in at least one of my books, if you aren't seen, you aren't heard. And that's the real danger. Nobody wants to lose their voice. It's what makes us human. It's what makes us individuals. I think women over forty have a tendency in our society to be passed over, to not be treated with the respect they deserve, to not be taken seriously. Our opinions are not sought or respected in the same ways as are men's.
Whispers and Lies, Mad River Road, Missing Pieces, and Heartstopper all explore difficult relationships between mothers and daughters. What draws you to this subject?
I've always been drawn to the mother-daughter relationship, which I consider the most complicated relationship there is. It's so "fraught." With everything. I had a wonderful relationship with my own mother. She was a fantastic, strong, kind, fabulous woman who was truly my best friend, and she died at 62, the age I am now. I was only 31 at the time and had just given birth four months earlier to my own daughter. I still think about my mother every day. She was the guiding force of my life, and for a long while, in my writing, I couldn't write an unsympathetic mother-figure. As I got older and my own two daughters grew up, I began to realize how difficult the role of mother really is, what a fine line we always have to walk. I had a deeper appreciation of the things I put my mother through, and I could see things from both perspectives. Also, I now had a wealth of material.
Are there any themes that recur in all – or most – of your works?
Two themes recur on a regular basis, although this wasn't something I deliberately set out to do. You only see themes surfacing through hindsight. Looking back on all my books, I can see they all contain the same two elements: a woman finding herself through adversity, and the whole mother-daughter theme discussed in the last question.
Mad River Road is written in the third person from multiple perspectives. Heartstopper alternates between a first-person journal written by an anonymous killer and multiple third-person perspectives. Missing Pieces and Whispers and Lies are both told by a single first-person narrator. Which of these narrative approaches did you find the most challenging? Does the story dictate your choice of point of view? Or do you decide on voice and perspective before you’ve fully worked out the story line?
These are complicated questions. You're really making me think. I find all narrative approaches equally challenging because they all accomplish different things. Each has its advantages and its limitations. Obviously a first-person narrative is more limited in scope and perspective, and yet it's the most personal and I find, the most freeing. It's really when the author and the character become one, and there's something quite exhilarating in that, although clearly, you never know more than your character. The third person allows greater freedom. You can introduce more things, jump around a lot more. I usually let the story dictate my point of view. Certain stories need different voices, i.e. Mad River Road and Heartstopper. They couldn't be told from a single perspective. Other stories, like Whispers and Lies have to be told in the first person or they don't work at all. As evidenced by the way I routinely change the way I tell my stories, I like to change things around a lot, mix things up. This keeps me from getting bored, and hopefully keeps my readers from getting bored as well.
Your books are true page-turners. Could you give us some examples of the literary techniques you use keep us up until the wee hours?
The techniques are relatively easy. You introduce an interesting character – if we believe in the character, we'll follow them anywhere – and put them in an interesting or perilous situation. Follow that character for a while along a certain path, and then that path should take an unexpected turn. Along the way, introduce other interesting characters and situations. Then leave one character at a particularly interesting moment and pick up on one of the other characters. So
you're constantly threading, weaving different elements of the story together. Drop one thread, pick another up, etc. etc. Also, in suspense, you always have to keep building. You have to constantly be upping the ante, escalating the tension. You have to keep moving your story along. Don't get too complicated. Keep it simple. And as I believe Jim Hensen once said, "If you're telling the story of Goldilocks and the three bears, bring on the three bears!”
In the preface to Mad River Road you explain how you chose your title. What about Whispers and Lies, Missing Pieces, and Heartstopper? How did you select those titles?
Titles are often the most difficult part of the book. The title has to set the tone, say something about the content, and make people want to see what's inside. It should be succinct, informative, and inviting. A real tease. Sometimes you see or hear something that you know would make a great title for a book and you hope one day you'll get an idea where you can use it, as was the case with Mad River Road. Sometimes, you write an entire book not knowing what it will be called, as was the case with Whispers and Lies. And sometimes the title appears to you as you're writing, as was the case with See Jane Run. Whispers and Lies just seemed to sum up what the book was about, how lies and half-truths can take on a life of their own, and the effect those whispers and lies can have on people's lives. To be honest, I can't remember how I chose the title for Missing Pieces. As for Heartstopper, my older daughter, Shannon, was visiting us in Florida a few years ago and we took a Yoga class together. At the end of the class, one of the older men present came up to me and said, "Wow. Your daughter is a real heartstopper!" I thought, what a great title for a book. As I said earlier, it's just
the way my mind works.
At the end of Heartstopper, the killer writes: “What’s that old song? I’ve got a lot of living to do? Stayed tuned.” If a movie ended with those lines, the audience would fully expect a sequel to be in the works. Do you think you might pick up where you left off one day? Would you consider writing a sequel to any of your other novels?
I've often been asked to write a sequel to some of my books. So far I've avoided the temptation, although I'm not ruling out anything. I may one day want to go back and follow up on the lives of some of the characters I've created. But at the moment, I prefer to let sleeping dogs lie, as it were. Where the books have ended happily, I prefer to believe things stayed that way, and I don't want to go back and start causing more trouble. Where things have been left hanging, well, maybe one day.... Generally speaking, I enjoy creating a whole new situation
with an entirely new cast of characters, just as I enjoy changing the locales. Occasionally a character from one book appears in another, if I can accomplish this seamlessly and subtly. I'm not sure that all my readers have even noticed. I don't do it often, just when I think it will work.
Your readers know that you like to mix things up. Could you give us a hint about how your next book might be different from your previous work?
My next novel is entitled Charley's Web. It's told from a single perspective, and it's about a young woman with the unlikely name of Charlotte (Charley) Webb, who writes a weekly column for the Palm Beach Post, and who one day receives a letter from a convicted child-killer in prison, asking Charley to write her life story. It's part thriller, part family drama, part journey of self-discovery. It's very different from Heartstopper, although yes, there's a mother.