Elizabeth asked Chris Pavone:

I actually have 2 questions! First is, if you find yourself in a writing slump, or unable to get it down on paper (if that even happens to you!), how do you go about getting out of the slump? The second question is how are you able to do such great dialogue? I have actually lost a lot of sleep reading your books because once I start them I cannot literally put them down!

Chris Pavone To get out of slumps: instead of trying to write the next page of the book, I write ABOUT the book--some irrelevant back story, some sketch of a minor character, some version of a plot summary. This is a way of returning my focus to the book (when I'm stuck, it's often because I'm distracted) while also allowing my imagination to roam around other corners of the story. This exercise doesn't always get me to the next page of the manuscript, but it always accomplishes something. Sometimes that's realizing that the next page ought to be something different that I'd been planning.

Dialogue: thank you! I don't really have an answer to this question. I just write dialogue the way I think really people speak. I'm glad it works for you!

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