Writing and how stories pitch up

IMAGINATION: CONNOLLY NEVER STARTS WITH A BLUEPRINT

- Hein Kaiser

John Connolly does not approach writing with blueprints, formulas or sticky notes that define the narrative before he even sits down to write. Most of the time he doesn't even know how a story is going to unfold, let alone what happens in the next chapter.

It's a creative process that he lets loose on himself and it can be, at times, exciting and others, as droll as watching paint dry.

It's a process that works. Few authors have the ability to engage, reel in and keep readers on a knife edge from page one to the end. Connolly can and it's probably because he goes through the same experience when putting pen to virgin paper.

"I am not a planner," he said. "I do not play chess. I do not have that kind of strategic mindset. Usually what will happen is that I have the opening scene to a book, and that is what I begin with.

"I sit down and write what is in my head, which is usually the first thousand words. And once that's down, I know the next thousand. But I do not know the ending.

"I have a vague idea of where it might go, but I could not tell you what I am going to write about tomorrow."

Known for the Charlie Parker series, Connolly has long explored the edges of crime fiction. His work blends the procedural with the mythic, adding shadows of the supernatural without losing its emotional, realism or geographic markers.