Read everything you can on writing. Join online forums and critique groups, go to conferences, get feedback, and learn, learn, learn!

For me, it's important that I experience and feel what the characters are feeling. So I put myself in those moments, in their thoughts, and let it happen naturally. I write what I feel.

Read everything you can on writing. Join online forums and critique groups, go to conferences, get feedback, and learn, learn, learn!

Before I start a book, I talk over my characters with a friend who is a counselor. I like to make sure I have the right dynamics in place and understand each character's belief system, fears, coping mechanisms and things like that.

That first shrink I saw when I got back to Clayton Falls told me no one is a lost cause, but I think that’s bullshit. I think people can be so crushed, so broken, that they’ll never be anything more than a fragment of a whole person.

I always write too long in the beginning, then it is a matter of going through it over and over again on subsequent drafts, looking for anything that slows down the narrative. It can be hard, cutting out parts I love, but I try to make the book as tight as possible so that the reader doesn't get bored.

My [story] outlines are usually about 5-6 pages long. I'm essentially telling myself the story in short form. I try to make it clear who the major characters are, what they want, and what obstacles they face.