I remember reading that John D. MacDonald, who lived on Captiva Island on Florida's West coast, felt uncomfortable putting Travis McGee there, so he put him in Fort Lauderdale, on the East coast. In some respects, I think I feel the same discomfort, which is why most of my novels are set outside of Palm Beach County, where I live. Out of 24 novels, I've set only three outside of Florida. I don't think a whole lot of my life, per se, goes into my novels, but my interests do. And there are certain situations and events I've experienced that make their way into the novels, but as they pertain to the characters.
TJM: I try not to think about genres when I write. I prefer to think about the story, the characters, the plot. What counts is a terrific story, compelling characters, and suspense. Besides, you may think you've written a science fiction book, but the publisher may see it as a thriller or a horror novel or even as mainstream fiction.
One of my favorite books this year was THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE. This novel was marketed as mainstream fiction, but has elements of science fiction, mystery, thriller, romance. In that sense, it probably breaks a million rules about what you should and shouldn't do in terms of mixing genres. But it's an astonishing first novel. The author wrote a terrific story with terrific characters and it all works beautifully.
BLACK WATER was originally going to be a straight abduction book, where the daughter of psychic Mira Morales, who first appeared in THE HANGED MAN, is kidnapped. But then one weekend in the Keys, we heard about - and later saw - this strange black mass just off the coast.
In the beginning, the mass was the size of Lake Okeechobee - the second largest fresh water lake in the U.S. Marine biologists from all over the country poured into the keys to figure out what it was. They determined that it wasn't red tide or runoff from the sugar cane plantations, wasn't anything that had been seen before. No one figured it out and eventually the mass dissipated. But as soon as I heard about it, I wondered what if the black water mass was nature's wormhole, a time tunnel? That's how BLACK WATER became a time travel book. It added a whole new layer to the story.
