Ed’s picking up the virtual signing books today (signing pix coming soon!), and I’m getting ready to head out onto the road for an east coast book tour (check my schedule on my appearances page, but more about that later in the week!).

I’ve been doing lots of interviews as part of the promotion for DO OR DIE, and one of my most frequently asked questions is about my writing method.

In fact, I recently did a recorded interview with my new audiobook publisher, Blackstone Audio (details about when you can listen to that on their website, Downpour.com, coming soon!), and one of the questions they sent me in advance, but we never got around to (because we started chatting about Navy SEALs!), was the following:

In a starred review, Kirkus Reviews says “Brockmann effortlessly and expertly tosses hundreds of details into the air and juggles them with brilliance…Enthralling and breathtaking.” When you are writing, what comes to mind first for you, the characters, setting, or the details surrounding the story line?

I’m gonna answer that for you here!

First, let me give a shout out to Kirkus. Thank you, that was a lovely review.

My writing process involves an excessive amount of outlining and note-making. Every author has his or her own method and mine includes extensive planning and plotting. So for me, it’s a mix of everything — characters, setting, plot — with an emphasis on the characters.

Because I often write connected books — or books in a series — my heroes are often characters that the readers have met before, and people I already know quite well. So I’m usually starting with a strong sense of who the hero is, and what his personal challenges and vulnerabilities might be. (Rule number one of a romance novel is to find your hero’s vulnerability, and then rub his face in it! For example, if he’s afraid of heights, make sure he’s forced to scale a cliff at the end of the book, in order to save the day. Right? Right.)

But when I’m starting from scratch with a brand new series or story arc, like DO OR DIE — which is the first book in the Reluctant Heroes series, a Troubleshooters spin-off — it all starts with something I call a “story seed.” It’s less than an idea. It’s a hint of an idea, and it’s usually something that evokes a strong emotional response for me.

For DO OR DIE, it was — and this might sound weird — but you know the wonderful old Paul Newman and Robert Redford movie, THE STING? It’s about con artists, about a big dangerous con job. And there’s this thing the characters do throughout the movie, it’s a signal they send to one another — they slide their finger down their nose. I loved that movie. I also grew up reading and loving Donald Westlake’s wildly funny and entertaining books about a somewhat inept team of con artists.

So my earliest thoughts of DO OR DIE included (warm and fuzzy) memories of Westlake’s books and THE STING’s unforgettable con artist signal, and I remember thinking, “What if I had a former Navy SEAL hero — a man of physical strength and action, who was, in fact, more at home conning the bad guys — using the power of words and persuasion to save the day, instead of typical SEAL explosions and gunfire?” I thought he would be a truly interesting character, so Ian Dunn was born, and I built on the idea from there.

Now, I don’t use that finger on the nose signal in the book, that belongs to THE STING, but that’s where my idea for this book started — that was the story seed. And of course, in DO OR DIE, the con goes terribly wrong, so the big action scene at the end includes SEAL-worthy explosions and gunfire! (Ian is, after all, a SEAL.)

DO OR DIE was a fun book to write with plenty of lighthearted, comedic scenes and humorous moments. I hope it’s as much fun to read as it was to write!

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See you tomorrow for the next installment in the DO OR DIE Countdown.

Read DO OR DIE’s cover blurb at https://suzannebrockmann.com/upcoming/do-or-die/

Get a signed hardcover copy via my DO OR DIE Virtual signing athttps://suzannebrockmann.com/upcoming/do-or-die/dod-virtual-signing/