S.J. Rozan- "Family Business"
Dear Reader:
I'm sometimes asked to explain the thinking that went into one book, like Family Business or another, or that goes into my writing in general. Last night I was watching the Knicks-Golden State game when Steph Curry broke the three-point record. There was no guarantee he'd do it last night but it was clear he was going to do it, so the NBA had celebratory videos all ready to go.
In one Curry says, "People ask me what I think about when I shoot." Cut to quick clips of him on the court as a little kid, in grade school, all the way up to the pros. Then he says, "So what do I think about when I shoot?" He puts up a shot and says, "Nothing."
Tempted as I am to go with this answer -- not least because it's true -- it requires explanation. In my case (and I bet in Curry's) a good deal of thinking goes on, before the action begins. What situations, issues, events might come up in the lives of the characters -- Lydia Chin, Bill Smith, or whomever I'm writing about -- that could involve and concern them, and interest me enough to spend a year a year on? Where did I leave them in the last book, who's changed, who hasn't, who needs to, how?
Notice that none of this is a plot. That's the "nothing" part. What I start with is a world -- high school football, the non-profit realm, real estate; and a theme -- teenage violence, the connection between white-collar crime and street crime, complicated families. Once I have those, that's as far as I can go. I start.
Generally, I have some sense of some important point I want to hit near the end. What the end will be, who'll be involved, what any of it means in the context of the rest of the book, I have to write the rest of the book to find out. It's as though I wanted to go from New York to San Francisco, with a compass -- the world, the theme, and the point to hit -- but without a map. The compass will keep me from getting far off track, prevent me from heading way north or drifting south, but it won't tell me where to go each day.
That's how I do it. Through nineteen books, that's how I've always done it. It seems to work out okay.
Now if I could just put up a three-point shot.
–S.J. Rozan
S. J. Rozan is the author of many award winning crime novels. She has won multiple awards for her fiction, including the Edgar, Shamus, Anthony, Nero, and Macavity, the Japanese Maltese Falcon, and the Private Eye Writers of America Lifetime Achievement Award. S. J. was born and raised in the Bronx and now lives in lower Manhattan.Visit her at http://sjrozan.net/