Sandra Brown Quotes

The most difficult part of any crime novel is the plotting. It all begins simply enough, but soon you're dealing with a multitude of linked characters, strands, themes and red herrings - and you need to try to control these unruly elements and weave them into a pattern.

To write a good mystery you have to know where it will end before you can decide where it will begin... and I've always known where it will end.

In a crime novel, if you are going to have a big revelation in chapter 30, you have to plant the information in chapters three and 11.

Murder mysteries are puzzles that are fun to resolve.

If we think about what mystery entails as a genre, certainly a big part of it is a resolution.

Plotting is difficult for me, and always has been. I do that before I actually start writing, but I always do characters, and the arc of the story, first... You can't do anything without a story arc. Where is it going to begin, where will it end.

I often keep my eyes open for bodies. I do. Ever since I was a kid. I think I read too many 'Nancy Drew' books.

The detective genre is not easy because you've got to get to a conclusion that is unexpected.

When I'm plotting out a book, I use a storyboard - I'll have maybe three lines across on the storyboard and just start working through the plot line. I always know where relationships will go and how the book is going to end.

I developed 'Trapped' because I was fascinated with the idea of a terrible crime in a small town cut off from the rest of the world.

An important part of any good mystery story like 'Original Sin' is that it's not just a game of 'Clue' with surprise after surprise after surprise, but the goal is to tell a story in the midst of that. Even once you know the solution to the mysteries, it's far from the whole story.

But the first published thing I did was a detective story, detective novel, and I did that on my own.

The thing about being a mystery writer, what marks a mystery writer out from a chick lit author or historical fiction writer, is that you always find a mystery in every situation.

Forensics I've always found absolutely fascinating. Anything to do with clues. And checking things out and solving.

Conflict and character are the heart of good fiction, and good mystery has both of those in spades.

I play a detective, very close to myself actually.

I am more of a suspense writer. A mystery writer solves mysteries. I am a 'high suspense' writer.

I do believe that even if you're the most clever person around and you figure out the 'whodunit' and you're not surprised - that shouldn't prevent you from enjoying the story.

My crime novels are highly structured. I never start out with a dead body. I start with an impossible scenario. Opening questions should be mysterious, weird, intriguing, and contain the seeds of the solution. The structure has to be meticulous - I'm a structure freak.

The old detective story that's got a really complicated motive doesn't apply to mine.

My outlines can be 10-20 pages in length and focus primarily on the physical active plot over the emotional plot.

Normally I start with a plot, and write a synopsis, and the ideas come from the construction.

I'm a great planner, so before I ever write chapter 1, I work out what happens in every chapter and who the characters are. I usually spend a year on the outline.

I would say that all short stories have mystery naturally built into them.

A mystery is a whodunit. You know what happened, but not how or who's behind it. A thriller, or a suspense, is a howdunit. You know what happened, and you usually know who did it, but you keep reading because you want to know how they pulled it off.