In the shaded portions where the two spheres of different lives meet, certain fundamentals- moods, loves, fears, angers- can't be hidden. That's the contract.

I spend eight months outlining and researching the novel before I begin to write a single word of the prose.

The outline is 95 percent of the book. Then I sit down and write, and that's the easy part.

So I work hard to present the human side of my characters while not neglecting the plot.

In other words, the people who populate my books are more than caricatures.

My books are primarily plot driven but the best plot in the world is useless if you don't populate them with characters that readers can care about.

Readers are paramount. I live to write books for them.