'Plum's are probably the funniest, but all the books have their own degree of humor. But if you're hooked into 'Ranger,' you're reading it for the romance.
— Janet Evanovich
I look at the plotline and let my co-author basically write the book; first draft. Then they give it to me, and I totally destroy it and write all my stuff over it.
Way back before the 'Alex Barnaby' series was first published, we were talking with Dark Horse then about making it into a graphic novel of some sort. We just couldn't get it together at the time; we had too many projects going on. We weren't sure how we wanted to bring it forward.
Every time I write 'Stephanie Plum', it's going to be Katherine Heigl's face there.
The best we can do is prioritize our needs and make choices accordingly.
I did a co-authored book not so long ago that was an American historical romance set at the turn of the century. I'm fascinated by that period in time and would love to do more.
There are some men who enter a woman's life and screw it up forever.
I made a choice that I was not going to be a pretentious writer.
I have people I love and trust on my team. And I'm lucky my family is incredibly talented in a variety of ways.
When I storyboard, they're just fragments of thoughts. I write in three acts like a movie, so I have my plot points up on the preliminary storyboard.
'Troublemaker' is not an adaptation of 'Metro Girl' or 'Motor Mouth.' It is an original story. The hardest part was probably trying to keep the sound true to the novels. I always write in first person, and it was important to us that the readers of 'Metro' and 'Motor' be comfortable with the change over to a graphic novel.
You have to have honesty to the product. You have to meet consumer expectations. You give them value for their money and give them a product that they need. I don't see anything wrong with all these things. And I don't think it's a bad thing to meet consumers' expectations.
When you're trying to expand your business, it's about real estate in the stores.
I know nothing about making a movie.
As writers, we all have an agenda, but if you recognize that agenda in a book, then you've failed.
The 'Barnaby' books were always intended to be graphic novels.
If you want to cry, you're not going to like my books.
What I enjoy as entertainment is what I enjoy writing.
Kate O'Hare is a former SEAL and is currently in the FBI - we know that there are no women in the SEALs, but we think there should be.
I always felt once it goes into movie land, the book belongs to someone else.
The problem with celebrity hot guys is they either get old or go off the grid. That's why a book is so much better... a hot guy can live in your imagination and stay hot forever!
We're comic book fans; we're huge NASCAR fans.
Inspiration is easy. The hard part is getting the inspiration onto 300 pages in an interesting, cohesive, easy-to-read but hard-to-forget story.
What I realized halfway through writing romance is that you start out intuitive, and you make all these choices mostly based on yourself and what you like and what talent you have, and... if you want to have any quality control over your product, you have to stop being intuitive and start being more of an analyst.
I work real hard so the reader doesn't have to. I don't want them to have to look up words.
I know the relationships, and I already know my characters and how I'm going to reveal my characters to my readers - how I'm going to feed them information about that character. That stuff doesn't have to be in my outline.
When I'm plotting out a book, I use a storyboard - I'll have maybe three lines across on the storyboard and just start working through the plot line. I always know where relationships will go and how the book is going to end.
Writing a graphic novel is hard. It feels closer to a screen play than to a novel.
I'm a writer, but this is a business. You have to look at it in the way you would look at any business.
What I do miss is the Jersey Shore.
There's just so much craziness out there in the world; it's like I couldn't fit them all in my books.
I had done 12 little romance books, and I decided I wanted to move into crime fiction.
I took all of my rejection letters - there must have been thousands of them in a huge box - and I went out on the curb and burned them all, crying.
We don't appreciate the value of humor sometimes.
I think I'm a pretty average person, and I respond to positive things, so I write for myself.
We are a little messianic about our comic books! We feel like they deserve to be more legitimate, they deserve to get more attention, they deserve to have better placement, and they deserve to have a broader audience.
I had been going around to everybody saying Katherine Heigl has to be 'Stephanie Plum', and then one day, I got that phone call saying that it was Katherine.
I'm a sitcom junky. And I love rom coms. Mind candy.
The 'Stephanie Plums' are very much Jersey books. So you can't get away from attitude and objectionable language.
There are tons of really good writers out there, but for one reason or another, they just have not had the support that allowed them to build audiences.
My world is better. Why would I want to waste my time playing golf? I can get up in the morning and be in this whole other world. I love my life.
When I started writing, it felt good, and I knew I was in the right genre.
What I have to outline is action and plot because I'm not particularly good at that.
Like 'Metro' and 'Motor,' 'Troublemaker' is written in first person. The only narration that happens is Barney speaking to the reader/thinking in her head. First person was a big challenge in the graphic novel because we want both men and women of all ages to enjoy 'Troublemaker.'
I've read comics all my life and have wanted to write a comic for as long as I can remember. Alex Barnaby and Sam Hooker seemed like the perfect team to make the move into the graphic medium.
I feel like I never would have been a success and gotten published without my family.
I love Sherri Shepherd as Lula.
Community, responsibility, flexibility, tenacity - these are all things that I imbue my characters with. They are basically good, nonjudgmental people who succeed at the end of the day, sometimes in spite of themselves.
I've finally reached a stage in my career where I can do what I want.
I don't want my readers slowed down by long passages of narrative.
