Read the excerpt from Lee Child's "A Simple Way to
Create Suspense".
Which statement by Karin Slaughter shows a similar
central idea?
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.
O 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.
O 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.