A Conversation with New York Times Bestselling Author, Tess Gerritsen

JONATHAN MABERRY:  Tess, your new novel, ICE COLD, is racking up great reviews, and it’s a bit different from the other books in your Rizzoli/Isles series.  Tell us about it.

TESS GERRITSEN: I love stories about ghost towns, and at its heart, that’s what ICE COLD is about.  Five travelers in Wyoming (including my medical examiner Maura Isles) make a fatal mistake when they follow their GPS onto a seasonal road and get stranded in a blizzard, miles from nowhere.  Freezing and hungry, they stumble into the village of Kingdom Come, and find twelve abandoned houses, where meals are still on the tables and pets have been left to die.  Where are the residents?

MABERRY:  So…what happens?

GERRITSEN:  Every attempt the travelers make to escape leads to disaster, until Maura is fighting for her life.   Jane Rizzoli, in the meantime, races to find out what happened to her vanished friend.

MABERRY:  For new readers, tell us about Det. Jane Rizzoli and Dr. Maura Isles.

GERRITSEN: Jane Rizzoli is a blunt and sometimes brash homicide detective with the Boston PD.  Dr. Maura Isles is the logical and scientific-minded medical examiner whose life has lately taken on disturbingly dark undertones.  They may be colleagues, but they are such different women that conflict is inevitable.

MABERRY:  So, is theirs an adversarial relationship?

GERRITSEN:  Actually, a bond has developed between these two women, a bond that’s grown into true friendship over the course of eight books.

MABERRY:  You’re an active blogger.  Why is that rewarding for an author?

GERRITSEN: I blog only because I love to share what I know about books and publishing.  I find the business endlessly fascinating, and I hate keeping an interesting fact to myself. (Find Tess’ blog here: http://www.tessgerritsen.com/blog/)

MABERRY:  Is the blog for marketing or for making contact?

GERRITSEN: I don’t know if it’s much of a marketing tool.  I only know that it’s a nice way to avoid feeling so isolated, here in my cold corner of the country.

MABERRY:  Every writer has a different process for getting things done.  When you have an idea for a new book how do you take it from concept to finished product?

GERRITSEN: My process is completely chaotic.  The most important thing for me is to get hit by that wonderful idea that gives me a chill.  I live for chills.  With ICE COLD, it was the idea of twelve deserted houses with uneaten dinners left on the tables.  How do you explain that?  It’s a creepy puzzle, and even though I didn’t know what the solution would be, I knew I wanted to write that book.

MABERRY:  A few of the authors I know –myself included—start with the solution and plot backwards.  What’s your method?

GERRITSEN: Very often I get the creepy idea, and then the challenge is solving the mystery. I’ll doodle on plain typing paper, jotting down possible plot points.  Travelers get stranded.  They find abandoned houses.  They find blood on the stairs.  They decide they need to get the hell out.  Their attempt to escape ends up with one of them critically injured.  And on and on…  I get swept up with the predicament, and keep writing until a solution starts to form.  Sometimes it doesn’t occur to me until I’m 2/3 through the writing.  When it doesn’t, I get writer’s block and have to set it aside until my brain catches up with the story.  That’s the hellish part of writing, when I’ve got a great set-up and no solution.  So far, I’ve managed to get past that hump every time.

MABERRY:  A lot of writers would die rather than let people see their first draft.  Where do you stand on that?

GERRITSEN: Because I write without an outline, my first drafts really suck.  They’re usually been scribbled in longhand, and the plot wanders over the place.  But then, on the second draft, I start to pull the logical threads into place.  By the third draft, it’s looking pretty good.  By the fifth draft, it’s getting close for submission.  I don’t let my manuscripts leave my office until I feel they’re ready for publication.  Which means the editorial suggestions I get back from my publisher are usually pretty light.

MABERRY:  Fans tend to mythologize writers.  How has that affected you over the years?

GERRITSEN: I have no idea if fans mythologize us.  Do they?  That’s rather amusing, because I leave such a staid life, for the most part.  I spend nine months out of the year sitting in the same chair, at the same desk.  I guess I do live a glamorous life while on book tour.  If you think living in hotel rooms and airplanes is glamorous.  But most of the cool adventures I supposedly have are all in my head — or on the page.

MABERRY:  You’ve been at this for a while.  What keeps it fresh?

GERRITSEN: What keeps it fresh?  The material.  Always striving for that chill up the spine.  Even though ICE COLD is my 22nd novel (if you include my early romantic suspense novels) I got just as much a thrill imagining that story as I did with my very first book. I got just as lost in the crisis, just as horrified by the predicament of the characters.  If I can’t feel the emotions my characters are feeling, then the story is a dud.

MABERRY:  How are your books doing on the international market?

GERRITSEN: My books have now been translated into 37 languages.  That blows my mind.  And yes, storytelling truly is part of the global economy.  2009 was the first year in which my foreign income exceeded my US income, which tells me that my books are helping the balance of trade.  Because of the internet, I hear from fans all over the world, from Dubai to Singapore to Nigeria.  My biggest markets outside the US are Germany and the UK.  What it tells me is that good stories are in demand everywhere — and that the US is not the center of the universe.

MABERRY:  Talk about the differences between mystery, suspense and thriller fiction (feel free to use your own work as examples).

GERRITSEN: I’m not sure I can tell you the difference between mystery, suspense, and thriller fiction except as a function of adrenalin.  The more your heart pounds, the more likely the book you’re reading is a thriller.  That’s about it.  I feel my books vary when it comes to producing adrenalin, which means some of my stories could be considered thrillers, and others as mysteries

MABERRY:  You’ve recently become an advocate of e-readers.  Why the change of heart?

GERRITSEN: I’m not so much an enthusiastic advocate of e-readers as I am resigned to their reality. (Although while traveling, I really do appreciate my e-reader!)  I still prefer an old-fashioned book.  I think I read a real book differently, with a higher level of concentration, than I do an e-book.  But the world is changing, and we’d be crazy not to accept that.  If it means more people are reading books, then that’s a good thing.  What I fear is the ease with which e-books can be pirated — and that could truly harm a writer’s career.

MABERRY:  What’s next after ICE COLD?

GERRITSEN: I’ve just turned in the final edited manuscript for ICE COLD, so I’m taking a deep breath and letting my brain play with the next story.  I already have a premise — and a great opening scene.  I’m going to be calling on my childhood memories of Chinese folk tales for this one.  Right, it sounds a little quirky, but already I’m getting that nice little chill.

Connect with Tess Gerritsen on Facebook.

Find Tess at her Website: www.tessgerritsen.com

– JM

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