A friend of mine who is in the publishing business knew I was writing a book, and he said, 'Have you said anything yet about the good guy? Because I know you spend so much time with the bad guys.' Because they're fun. So then you have to make the good guy fun, in order to compete. That's the challenge.

Try not to write the parts that people skip.

Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.

I left advertising as fast as I could in 1961. And I haven't ever thought about going back.

If you take a few days to write an outline, you're just making up scenes that you think will work, that you think will be interesting. But as you write it, other ideas occur - better ideas that have to do with what you're writing.

Avoid prologues: they can be ­annoying, especially a prologue ­following an introduction that comes after a foreword.

It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does.