The winner of two RITA awards for Best Long Contemporary Series and Best Contemporary Single Title, Suzanne Brockmann is also the recipient of fifteen WISH Awards from Romantic Times, five Gold Medal Reviews and has won the Holt Medallion, the Rising Star Award, RT Magazine's Award for Best Series Romance of the Year in both 1996 and 1998, as well as a career achievement award for series romance.

Initially, she wrote screenplays and TV scripts, without "selling" success. Frustrated, she listened to a series of self-help tapes on goal-setting (Tony Robbins), which encouraged her to set shorter term goals. That's when she turned her to romance writing. She did tons of research, read a zillion romances (focusing on contemporary series) and in June of 1992, she sat down to write her first book and hasn't stopped since.

Suzanne, tell us about your writing process. How do you organize? How long does a draft take? How long does editing take? How much time do you spend on writing each day? What inspires you? What do you do to inspire yourself and keep on task?

I do a huge amount of planning before I sit down to write. I outline extensively (my outlines are usually about 80 pages long for a 500 page book) and write huge amounts of character notes and backstory.

Depending on the length of the book, these days it takes me between two and four months to write. I write very clean first drafts, because of the planning and outlining I do. I know exactly where the book and the characters are going, scene by scene.

I always start work each day by reading through and polishing the scenes I wrote yesterday. And while I'm writing a book, I write seven days a week. If I miss a day, it takes me several days to get back up to speed. I have a set number of pages that I must write each day -- but there's no rule that says I have to stop when I hit that daily goal. These days I spend about half my day writing and other half of the day doing promotional work. (And since my office is in my home, I tend to work all the time, around the clock. Serious workaholic tendencies here!)

As for inspiration, I'm greatly inspired by the idea of finishing! Seriously though, I get a huge amount of satisfaction from a job well done. I'm one of those people who hate doing the laundry because just when you think you're done, the day ends and there's instantly a new pile of dirty clothes.

What are some of the methods for creating characters that you discuss in your Tall, Dark & Believable workshop?

In this workshop, I focus a great deal on the importance of knowing your heroes thoroughly before you start to write. Backstory is so important -- in particular your hero's childhood. I'll be talking about the way I develop a full system of beliefs and values for my heroes -- and most of our beliefs and values are instilled in us during our childhood. It's a full set of beliefs and values that keep characters behaving consistently. Beliefs and values can also conflict, providing a great source of internal conflict for your characters.

Writers often talk about characters that won't behave or do exactly what the writer wants them to do. Any advice for keeping unruly characters in line?

Yes! Listen to your characters! I think it's really important to let the characters drive the plot, rather than the other way around. Usually when I'm reading a book or watching a movie and the characters start behaving inconsistently, it's because the author has tried to force them to react to a situation or a plot twist in such a way that is unbelievable. (A character who always stands and fights suddenly turns and runs, simply because we need a chase scene here. Or an intelligent character does something incredibly stupid for a cheap laugh. Or how many times have we groaned when the lights go out and the smart, capable heroine who thinks someone is trying to kill her doesn't run screaming for the neighbor's house, but instead goes into the basement -- in her underwear. Yeah, right. )

It can be frustrating for a writer, because sometimes an entire story has been leading to a certain plot point, and when you get there, it doesn't make sense for your characters to react the way you'd imagined they would, back when you first started outlining the story. But definitely don't make them do it!

At the same time, it's up to you to make your characters face obstacles -- their own personal hell, so to speak. Identify their vulnerabilities and make them suffer. But let them suffer in their own individual way!

You often speak of "deep POV." What exactly does this mean?

I like to get in my characters' heads so deeply that the narrative sections between dialog read almost as if it's written in the first person.

Let me give you an example from my book, GET LUCKY, Silhouette Intimate Moments, March, 2000.

Frisco nodded at the Captain. "Definitely, O'Donlon's perfect for the assignment.

"What assignment?" Lucky asked. "If it's training an all-woman SEAL team, then, yes, thank you very much, I'm your man."

There, see? He'd managed to make a joke. He was already starting to feel better. Maybe he wasn't going out into the real world with Alpha Squad, but he was going to get a chance to work with his best friend again. And -- his natural optimism returning -- he just knew there was a Victoria's Secret model in his immediate future. This was California, after all. And he wasn't nicknamed Lucky for nothing.

Okay, this is written in Lucky's POV, and I'm deep inside of his head. A way to check to see if it's deep POV -- turn it into first person:

Frisco nodded at the Captain. "Definitely, O'Donlon's perfect for the assignment.

"What assignment?" I asked. "If it's training an all-woman SEAL team, then, yes, thank you very much, I'm your man."

There, see? I'd managed to make a joke. I was already starting to feel better. Maybe I wasn't going out into the real world with Alpha Squad, but I was going to get a chance to work with my best friend again. And -- my natural optimism returning -- I just knew there was a Victoria's Secret model in my immediate future. This was California, after all. And I wasn't nicknamed Lucky for nothing.

See how that works?

One way to learn how to write in deep POV is to actually write the scene from the first person and then go back later and change all the I's and my's to third person pronouns. (This also helps stamp out any unintentional head hopping!)

Notice also that I don't use any distancing statements such as "he thought." It's not necessary. We're so deep in Lucky's head that the fact that he's thinking this is a given!

I know you're doing a huge "book signing tour" to promote your latest book. Tell us more.

The book I'm promoting is called THE DEFIANT HERO and it will be on sale as of February 27th. It's the second book in the on-going single title series that I started with THE UNSUNG HERO (still available!), which was recently voted RWA's # 1 Favorite Book of the Year. THE DEFIANT HERO deals with deception and telling lies and hiding the truth -- all of the subplots touch on this in some way. It's the story of a woman whose daughter is kidnapped by terrorists. She's willing to do anything to get her child back. Like TUH, it's got a World War II flashback subplot that's connected to the main story, and a really sizzling hot subplot between two characters that claim to hate each other. Or do they...?

Double RITA winner SUZANNE BROCKMANN is our guest speaker for March. You won't want to miss this prolific author of more than 30 contemporary romances for Silhouette Intimate Moments, Harlequin Intrigue, Bantam Loveswept and Ballantine as she shares with us her unique formula for writing and selling.