English

Henry Barker

13 February, 07:21

Read the excerpt from Lee Child's "A Simple Way to Create Suspense". Like the old cartoon of the big fish eating a smaller fish eating a very small fish, you'll find out the big answer after a string of smaller drip-drip-drip answers. The big answer is parceled out slowly and parsimoniously. Which statement by Karin Slaughter shows a similar central idea? I want it to change them, and I want my reader to feel that change through the character, as if it's them. There has to be this peeling away of the onion, where you get to the core of the character as the story unfolds. I mean, you know, crime is such a great tool for talking about the human condition, and that's what I like to do. If you think about "To Kill a Mockingbird," for instance, some of those courtroom scenes are more tense than any Grisham novel, you know.