tess gerritsen

Hi Karen, thought I'd check the board one more time, and glad I saw your question! *****SPOILER BELOW! *****

thanks to everyone for being so welcoming, and for the great questions! I'll certainly drop in from time to time in the future!

Michelle, my first books were romances -- because I enjoyed reading them so much during the stressful years of my medical training. I wrote my first thriller (HARVEST) because the premise was so gripping that I couldn't NOT write it. HARVEST ended up launching my thriller career, and was so successful that I've continued writing thrillers ever since.

Mad Cow, Jane is very much like every woman cop I"ve ever met. They all seem to be tough and they're used to fighting for their rights. I don't know if the job makes them that way, or if a certainly personality goes into police work, but after a few years on the job, they all seem to have those same personality traits. Jane is, quite simply, the exact opposite of who I am!

My characters always surprise me. From the start, I didn't know that Jane would be a continuing character. Then she managed to take over, get married, and get pregnant. I admit, when the pregnancy first entered the picture, I wasn't sure if she'd have the baby or even be able to carry it to term. I wasn't sure how I would be able to write about a pregnant detective. (I'm not sure how many pregnant detectives there've been in the world of crime novels!) So every development in her life has been unplanned and surprising for me.

I'm so glad you enjoyed The Surgeon! Hope you enjoy the rest of the series.

Lily, I find Jane a little more fun to write because she's so different from me -- and because she says such blunt things, without caring whether people get mad at her or not. It's a pleasure to "get into" her head. Maura's a lot more serious and not nearly as humorous, and a little gloomy. But she's also incredibly intelligent and cultured, so when Jane gets tiresome to write, it's a relief to switch heads!

Loose sheets, Unlined. I like being able to scrawl all over the page, even sideways. The danger comes if a breeze blows through the room and scatters things!

For my major characters (e.g. Jane and Maura) I pretty much remember everything about them, except maybe their ages, which keep changing as the series progresses. But for minor characters, I sometimes forget things like age,and often have to go back into my earlier books to confirm those details. I think the most important aspects of a character's personality should be memorable -- and if they aren't, then I didn't do a good job of creating that character.

The pros: you already know the characters, so you can pick right up where you left off with them. Your universe has been established, you don't have to spend a lot of creating back-story, and you can launch right into the newest plot. The cons: characters can become stale after five or six books unless you keep their lives interesting. That's where mystery series seem to fail -- when the characters become static and don't change. So the trick is to keep them evolving!

Isidro, so glad you're enjoying the Rizzoli/Isles series! As for what kind of pen I use, I want something that writes effortlessly, without leaking. So lately I"ve been using gel ink retractable pens manufactured by Pilot. The ink runs out pretty quick, unfortunately, so I"ve gone through several packages already!

ice cream, that's a great question - and something that every writer must face. I often find myself wanting to do ANYTHING else but write. I'm so easily distracted by the weather or the garden or the latest news headlines, and it's so easy to let days slip by without writing a word. What keeps me motivated is the deadline on my calendar. So I've learned to force myself to work, even when I don't feel like it. Often, if I'm having trouble, it's because my story is flawed. That's what writer's block is all about -- my subconscious telling me I need to go back and figure out how to make the story work better. I've learned to stop and think for awhile. I'll lie on my couch or go for a drive, anything to give myself time to ponder where the story went off the rails -- and how to get it back on.

Kx, I write in my home office. It's a great space, with windows overlooking the ocean. From my desk I can watch sea birds and occasionally even spot dolphins and bald eagles. Very distracting, but I love the view. I try to write about 4 pages a day, and I work in long hand (I've never been able to compose fiction on a keyboard for some weird reason). And I certainly don't wait until the mood strikes me, otherwise I'd never get my books done in time. I just sit down and force myself to get started. And eventually, the story pulls me in.

Poppy, I'd suggest going back to THE SURGEON, just to see the history of Jane Rizzoli. Then follow that up with THE APPRENTICE and THE SINNER, just to see how Jane becomes pregnant!

Hi Michelle, I think that although the books are best read in order, any one of the books can probably be picked up by itself and still be enjoyable. Jane Rizzoli, the primary character, has changed quite a bit through the series, though, and if you want to see the transitions she's made, it's best to start with THE SURGEON, where she's first introduced. In the first book, she will probably not seem very likable. In truth, she's .. well, a BITCH is the best word for her. But as the series continues, and she finds true love and becomes pregnant, and then a mom, you see her grow happier and become more fulfilled and become far more likable. I didn't intend for this to be a series. In truth, Jane was supposed to die in THE SURGEON, and I had her death scene all plotted out. But then when I reached the climactic scene where she was supposed to die, she did something unexpected. She fought back... and she survived. She became a real person to me, and refused to surrrender, and that's the characteristic that's defined her for me. She's a survivor, and a fighter, and she deserved to live. And so she did. Which is how the series was born.

Poppy, don't let anyone tell you that there's only one right way to write a book! I've never been able to stick to an outline, so I don't even bother to write one anymore. I know many published writers who just sit down and start writing and let the story take them all the way to the end. Some of us are just seat-of-pantsers, and that's okay. Every writer simply must find the way that works best for her -- and stop paying attention to how everyone else does it.

Kerri, what does frustrate me is how much of publishing is purely marketing-driven. If bookstores and marketing departments can't fit your book in a particular well-defined slot, a book has a far poorer chance of getting attention and publicity money, no matter how great the book may be, and no matter how much an editor may love it. Editors, in fact, seem to have less and less power in publishing houses while the sales department has far more. But I suppose this is true in many industries, where the best-paid people are often in the sales department.

Janet, I started writing when I was only seven years old -- as soon as I learned HOW to write! I even bound my own books with needle and thread. They're falling apart now, but I still have them. So I've always been a writer. My going into the medical field was more of a side trip. I never really thought it'd be possible to make a living as a writer, plus I loved science, so medicine seemed the perfect field for me -- until I became a mom and realized it was really, really hard to combine motherhood with a job that required me to be on call at night. Is there a book in all of us? Well, there's certainly an autobiography in all of us. But I don't think there's a novelist in everyone. I feel that storytelling ability is something you either have or you haven't -- just as some people have blue eyes and some people have brown.

Hi Louise, I can't really generalize about male vs. female authors, but I certainly do pay attention to my characters' emotional lives. It's what women seem to do in real life seem as well -- that's the way it is with me and my girlfriends. We're always tuned in to each others' moods. In my case, I also think that once having been a romance author (yes, you may not know it, but I did write romance novels years ago!) made me focus very strongly on character development. Romance novels are, at their core, all about character and conflict. An author who learns to spin a whole tale about just those elements will probably carry over those lessons in character development to other genres.

Hi Jen, the most difficult part of the whole process is certainly the writing! I love the promotional part, because it almost always turns out to be a lot of fun meeting readers and seeing towns I'd never get a chance to visit otherwise. But the writing... ah, sometimes it keeps me up at night, wondering whether I''ll ever finish the book. (I'm going through that right now.) Since I don't outline my books, I often write myself into blind alleys and then have to figure out a way to get out. Or I get to the end of the mystery and think, "that solution is lame I have to come up with another villain." I wish I could clone a writer-slave to do the writing!

I wish I did have more time to read for pleasure! I find that when I do, I tend toward history and nonfiction. But I also get a lot of free books (publishers send them to me for possible quotes) so I get a head start on what the hot new thrillers of the next season will be.

I'm an avid reader and news junkie, so I find plots all over the place -- certainly in the news! For instance, VANISH came from a news report about a woman found dead in her bathtub. The police zipped her into a body bag ... and a few hours later, she woke up in the morgue. Whew, that had to be a book. I'm also interested in archaeology, so my next book is going to be about Egyptian mummies and other weird artifacts. I just start off with an idea (say, a mummy in a museum that turns out to have a bullet in its leg) and see where it takes me. I don't plot things out ahead of time, and I like to be surprised!