Anybody can do research. The plotting of the novel, writing the ending before you write anything else, which I always do - I don't know that everybody can do that. That's the hard part.
To her, ... celebrities at the party were not movie stars but the actual characters they'd played. Unfortunately, these movies had overlapped in her mind -- to the extent that she'd merged the plots of several different films into one incomprehensible epic. ...
I believe in plot, in development of character, in the effect of the passage of time, in a good story - better than something you might find in the newspaper. And I believe a novel should be as complicated and involved as you're capable of making it.
Plot is a map and I begin with it. It is what made me admire the novels of the 19th century; that the stories are foreshadowed. TheyÕre going someplace.
Plot, plot and more plot. Many layers to the storytelling and a huge cast of characters that are very well developed,