I think the biggest challenges for franchises are keeping them fresh and exciting, and most times, you need a good bad guy to make that thing continually work, and sometimes they don't.
You can, I think, have a quiet and steady protagonist and not run the risk of terminal dullness as long as exciting things happen to them and around them, and crime is the ideal genre for making this come about.
What excites me, what attracts me, what gets me up in the morning is telling the next story and getting it out in front of readers and hoping they'll love it too.
The unfolding of a story is both as exciting and as difficult for each and every novel I've written, regardless of time and place.
I love stories that put you on the edge of your seat and make you feel something.
The rule I have when choosing films is the excitement factor, I need to feel excited about the story and whatever message the film has - only then do I sign on the dotted line.
I am a voracious reader myself. I don't stick to one genre. My only criteria is that it's a good story. I try to bring that to my work because I think people can read your excitement about a story.
What I look for in a project is whether the storyline excites me.
