Nick Petrie

I try not to think too much about my writing process - I tend to feel my way forward and find more insights that way.

From a purely craft standpoint, a simple character has a single motivation, while complex characters have two or three or more motivations, at least one of which is in direct conflict with another.

Character drives the story, and the story drives the book. I don't think about where the action should go, or how much there should be, until it's required by the characters. When I find myself adding conflict just because I'm afraid that the reader might get bored, I know I've taken a wrong turn somewhere.

To be a carpenter or a builder or a home inspector, you have to have that kind of visual brain where you can sort of imagine something taken apart.

I'm most interested in people who've lived life in the extreme, which is what draws me to crime fiction.

In crime fiction, I cut my teeth on early Robert Parker, Elmore Leonard, John D. MacDonald, and Alan Furst. I always loved the writing of Hemingway and Faulkner. Cormac McCarthy's 'Border Trilogy' has been a huge influence; I think I read those novels four times.

It's fun to figure out a way to make something happen that will get the reader involved on a visceral level. When written well, an exciting scene on the page will actually have a physical effect on the reader - your heart will beat faster, your adrenaline will start to flow.

It's interesting what pops out of an author's subconscious when he's not thinking about it.

It's odd for me to compare my stuff to Lee Child's, because I'm such of fan of his, and also because it's curiously something I never did until I kept hearing about our protagonists' similarities.

I've always been drawn to the extremes of human behavior, and crime fiction is a great way to explore the lives and stories of fascinating people.

I'm not a big believer in the idea of genre - I'm a fan of any writer who can pull me into compelling characters and stories - but I can't imagine I'll start writing domestic dramas any time soon.

I love the beautiful distractions of the world - television and movies, video games, the Internet in general. But I try really hard to avoid them, because they don't help me become a better writer. They subtract hours from my day. And a writer's main currency is time. Time to daydream, time to walk and think, time to sit and do the work.