Looking at her picture you might say, "For someone who wrote 60 books, she looks GOOD!"
Actually, the secret, said Sandra Brown during a telephone interview from Texas, is that her early books were formulaic romances that she faithfully produced at the rate of five per year. Now she is best known for suspense novels.
"Since 1988, I have only written one book a year and they have all had more complex plots. I have always found writing very difficult. My latest book, 'Envy,' is about a writer and so I identify with Parker Evans. The process he goes through to write is very much like mine — the way he hammers out the plot, the way he hates to outline because it interferes with spontaneity, and his habit of doing several drafts. Some have seen this book as an insider's view of writing."
But neither "Envy" nor any of her other best-selling novels, including "The Switch," "Standoff," "The Alibi," "French Silk," "Best Kept Secrets" and "Slow Heat in Heaven," have been autobiographical in nature. ""The heroines are much more courageous than I am. I love writing villains, because I was the big sister of five girls, so I had heavy responsibility growing up. I had to be 'the good girl.' That's why I like writing about nasty people like Noah and Nadia. They're the bad side of Sandra Brown that I couldn't show in real life."
Anything but egotistical, Brown underlines her difficulty in writing. "The more I realize how little I know, and the more I use up all my plots, it is anything but easy. I always try to incorporate something in every book that I've never used before. Hopefully, spontaneity will keep readers reading."
Brown comes from a family of bookworms. Her father was a newspaper editorial writer, and both parents encouraged her to read. "So I read constantly. It helped me get a love of story telling. Once I started to write, it was like all the lights came on. I was always making up stories in my head. I was a daydreamer. I didn't start as a child, but once I started, I couldn't stop. It was compulsive."
Brown's favorite approach is to put her heroines in impossible situations. "I like to see the way they work through them. I try to keep a lot of questions unanswered. I continually plant questions in the reader's mind, and then I keep reminding them of those questions. But I reserve a lot of the answers until the end of the book. When I read a book, I want to know all the answers by the time I finish."
Although Brown writes about a number of bad characters, she never wants a character "to do something wrong and then go scot free. I like to see characters with a conscience. I don't want the hero figure especially to be a person without a conscience. I hope the differences are very distinct in any book I write. They have a moral foundation, and they do differentiate between right and wrong. If the hero does any wrong, I want him to have honor at the end of the day. That distinguishes them from the bad characters in the book. I can't stand to have a character do something wrong and then ride off into the sunset."
One of her best characters in "Envy" is Daniel Matherly, the aging head of a publishing firm, and father to Maris, the heroine. "I liked Daniel. He owned up to his mistakes and character flaws. He never sought to shirk the responsibility for his own decisions. He always acknowledged his own mistakes. I like him for that. He had honor."
When asked why so many of her characters use the f word as a synonym for love making Brown says, "I don't apologize for that. If I hear my characters say it, I want it included. I don't want my characters diluted. It would be offensive if I started tailoring the characters to fit my own moral stance. I don't condone adultery, and I don't use any racial slurs in my books. But I don't consider the language to be evil, and I have to stay true to my characters."
Although sexually explicit at times, the love scenes are intellectual as well as emotional, and they are very tender. "I try to make them sensual, but I write them the way I would enjoy reading them. It's as much a cerebral activity for me as it is emotional, so I want it to be that way for my characters, too."
This is undoubtedly why she employs witty repartee even during lovemaking scenes. Brown says, "In every book there is an element of fantasy. Without a little bit of fantasy, every novel would be as dry as dust. Most entertainment comes from fantasizing about a place where you aren't. Even the island Parker, the writer, lives on is a fantasy. I try to make it otherworldly."
Brown has been very busy this year with wedding preparations for both a daughter and a son. "But I'm about to pour on the heat," she says with her ingratiating Southern accent. She is currently working on "The Crush," a book "with a real creepy villain, a contract killer, who is attractive, wealthy and smooth — but evil. I'm finding him fascinating. He develops a crush on the heroine, a surgeon, and wreaks havoc on her life."
Expect "The Crush" to appear by next Labor Day.
E-mail: dennis@desnews.com