I think what a lot of action movies lose these days, especially the ones that deal with fantasy, is you stop caring at some point because you've lost human scale.
In re-reading 'Presumed Innocent,' the one thing that struck me - and I re-read the book four different times in writing 'Innocent,' interested in different things each time - but I did think there were a couple of extra loops in the plot that I probably didn't need. The other thing that sort of amazed me was how discursive the book was.
People in my novels always have terrible problems. If they are not terrible, I make them more terrible.
Despite the volatile mixture of family, politics and past misdeeds darkening the present, 'Hardball' doesn't have the sharp tang of the early novels or the expansive reach of more recent series installments.
I don't understand what's happening in 'Mr. Robot' all the time, and I'm really actually intimated for the second season. I'll have to rewatch the first season, I think.
Spy plots are hard, really hard.
The funny thing is, though I write mysteries, it is the one genre in adult fiction I never read. I read Nancy Drew, of course, when I was a kid, but I think the real appeal is as a writer because I'm drawn to puzzly, complicated plots.
I think screenwriting gave me more of an affinity for plot - my first novel, 'Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,' doesn't have a very sophisticated roadmap. But screenwriting required me to learn a higher level of plottiness, and I tried to bring that to 'The Haters.'
While I was writing 'Elizabeth Is Missing' and struggling with the intricacies of the plot, I told myself the next book would be really simple and linear, and I'd have it all worked out before I set down a single word.
Novels seem to me to be richer, broader, deeper, more enjoyable than poems.
It's an interesting plot device to enter in a third wheel - it always helps raise the stakes for all parties involved. But often, those characters can be one-dimensional.
The detective genre is not easy because you've got to get to a conclusion that is unexpected.
Sometimes my plot lines are so convoluted, I get calls from friends at 3 am saying; you SOB, you'll never pull this one off.
So much for endings. Beginnings are always more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known to favor the stretch in between, since it's the hardest to do anything with. That's about all that can be said for plots, which anyway are just one thing after another, a what and a what and a what.
Whenever I start a book, I swear it's going to be a short one. But then it's, 'Who was his grandfather? And how did he get there in the first place? And what kind of animals is he chasing?'
At a certain point the audience shouldn't worry about catching every word and understanding every twist and turn, because at a certain point that's pretty much impossible.
Writing a mystery is more difficult than other kinds of books because a mystery has a certain framework that must be superimposed over the story.
I didn't want to do comedy again. It is way harder when you are doing comedy. You can't just concentrate on the character and the plot. In comedy, the writers, instead of obsessing about character and plot, obsess about the jokes.
I like to think of what happens to characters in good novels and stories as knots--things keep knotting up. And by the end of the story--readers see an unknotting of sorts. Not what you expect, not the easy answers you get on TV, not wash and wear philosophies, but a reproduction of believable, emotional experiences.
This is going to take a while. I'm a fantasy author. We have trouble with the concept of brevity.
I believe in plot, in development of character, in the effect of the passage of time, in a good story - better than something you might find in the newspaper. And I believe a novel should be as complicated and involved as you're capable of making it.
I don't like to go to the movies to see violence or some kind of spy thing with all kinds of information you have to assimilate to understand the plot.
As a reader, I do not like to have everything handed to me. Because after a while it gets formulaic and I'm thinking, "If this is so thought through, then why do I need to read it. It's done!" It becomes a beach book at a certain point.
[The director's idea for the film was:] A young American or English girl goes to Tuscany to visit English expatriates. She is on a mission to lose her virginity. That's a mission easily accomplished, if that's the only mission. The story had to be more complicated than that. Because there is so little happening dramatically, there had to be something to keep you curious.
I believe that if the story is fleshed out and the characters more believable, the reader is more likely to take the journey with them. In addition, the plot can be more complex. My characters are very real to me, and I want each of my characters to be different.
