Jeffery Deaver
Jeffery Deaver
Jeffery Deaver is an American mystery/crime writer. He has a bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri and a law degree from Fordham University and originally started working as a journalist. He later practiced law before embarking on a successful career as a best-selling novelist. He has been awarded the Steel Dagger and Short Story Dagger from the British Crime Writers' Association and the Nero Wolfe Award, and he is a three-time recipient of the Ellery Queen...
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth6 May 1950
CityGlen Ellyn, IL
Breathtakingly real and utterly compelling, Immoral dishes up page-turning psychological suspense while treating us lucky readers to some of the most literate and stylish writing you'll find anywhere today.
The best way to learn about writing is to study the work of other writers you admire.
In other words, the people who populate my books are more than caricatures.
When it comes time to write the book itself I'll shut the lights out, picture the scene I'm about to write then close my eyes and go at it. Yes, I can touch type.
My books are primarily plot driven but the best plot in the world is useless if you don't populate them with characters that readers can care about.
So I work hard to present the human side of my characters while not neglecting the plot.
It means working harder to do the research but I don't really mind - I don't think I have what it takes to chase criminals through back alleys and wade through blood at crime scenes.
Of course, all writers draw upon their personal experiences in describing day-to-day life and human relationships, but I tend to keep my own experiences largely separate from my stories.
I like the way words go together and I like the gamesmanship of writing poetry. It is such a challenge.
The outline is 95 percent of the book. Then I sit down and write, and that's the easy part.
That's the past for you. Not only does it come back at the most unexpected, and inconvenient, times but it's set in stone.
Generally my typical books have lots of twists and turns a big surprise ending and then usually another surprise at the end and ideally, as in Garden of Beasts, we get to the very end and we find at the last few pages that there's yet another surprise.
When you work alone, you need to socialize at some level.
It's becoming apparent that I like bad boys. That's one of my problems. They've all been bad boys. You're one too. You're a bad boy. But, I think you're a good bad boy.