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" I once paddled a canoe the length of the Mississippi River all the way from Itasca to New Orleans. "
John Sandford
Way
New
Canoe
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" If you do outline, you have to be aware of the problems that that kind of thing can cause. "
John Sandford
Cause
Aware
You
" With most of my books, I'll actually go out and look at the setting. If you describe things carefully, it kind of makes the scene pop. "
John Sandford
Look
Kind
Go
" When you're building a character, or at least when I'm building a character, you start saying, 'How am I going to make people like him?' "
John Sandford
Start
Character
People
" If readers tell you that stretches of dialogue or narrative were too long, that they couldn't tell who was talking, that's something that can be fixed. "
John Sandford
Dialogue
Long
Talking
" Working for the 'Miami Herald' in 1972, I covered street action for both the Republican and Democratic national conventions in Miami and saw probably the most violent conventions ever - more violent than even 1968 in Chicago. "
John Sandford
Republican
Street
Miami
" If you actually hang out in the countryside, which I did, it's actually quite peaceful. "
John Sandford
Out
Peaceful
You
" A lot of cops in fiction are very depressive and are kind of downbeat, and they've got all kinds of existential angst that they're dealing with. "
John Sandford
Cops
Existential
Dealing
" When I was reporting crime... I never had the sense of clockwork conspiracies or some kind of imposing order of evil. What I sensed was things just sort of falling apart. "
John Sandford
Never
Kind
Falling
" When you're writing two books a year, you really need some time off and don't want to use that down time for touring. I do like talking with readers, though; they can tell you important stuff. "
John Sandford
Important
Writing
You
" Before the Internet became so powerful, I toured extensively. With the rise of the Internet, touring apparently has become less important. "
John Sandford
Powerful
Rise
Important
" A lot of journalists are talented enough to write a mystery novel, and I would say that most of the top-end mystery writers actually started out as reporters. But there is more to it than just the writing; there's a learning process, and most journalists aren't willing to do it. "
John Sandford
Writing
Say
Process
" I've always had a fascination with the technical and small-scale aspects of life - the national media seem to have more interest in the sweeping political views. "
John Sandford
More
Media
Political
" My kids, who are grown now and living in L.A., are used to me packing up and taking off to somewhere weird. "
John Sandford
Used
Living
Weird
" There are two worldviews in thriller writing: the paranoid view, like Chuck Logan's, that everything is inside a large clockwork. I like those books; they're intricate and thought out, but my view is that everything is chaotic and stupid. Chaos reigns, and civilized people do what they can to hold it back. "
John Sandford
People
Writing
Thought
" I have a problem with the way the media deals with a lot of law enforcement issues. "
John Sandford
Media
Law
Law Enforcement
" A lot of my friends were retiring from the newspaper business, and the newspaper pensions are not enormous. "
John Sandford
Newspaper
Were
Lot
" I've always thought of myself as a journalist; that was what I did. "
John Sandford
Myself
Did
Always
" I fear becoming formulaic. Some of my books are. "
John Sandford
Books
Becoming
Fear
" As a journalist, I interviewed people, and you begin to feel different rhythms in speech, and you can use those things to help carve out a character. "
John Sandford
Help
You
Speech
" Books set in Brooklyn and L.A. are often about people who are rootless, who want to go somewhere else. In the Midwest, though, the stories are about people who want to stay where they are - who like where they are. "
John Sandford
Want
Stay
People
" People ought to be slapped up side of the head, not always get what they expect. That's why sometimes the bad guy gets away. "
John Sandford
Always
Sometimes
People
" I spend a lot of time wandering around the countryside just looking at people, seeing how everything fits together. "
John Sandford
Together
Time
Seeing
" There's something about marriage that is not as intensely romantic or interesting as a couple's first meeting. "
John Sandford
Meeting
Interesting
Romantic
" They don't have a lot of crime in the countryside other than theft. But every once in a while, things turn ugly, and when they turn ugly, they turn very ugly. "
John Sandford
Turn
Ugly
Crime
" That's my sense of how crime works: that it's not any kind of calculated evil driven by the devil, but just control disintegrating. "
John Sandford
Devil
Control
Evil
" Most people in protest mobs are pretty sincere and don't want to fight cops or break things. "
John Sandford
People
Protest
Pretty
" It's interesting how people are sensitive to language and how it works. "
John Sandford
People
Language
Interesting
" I've always been sort of interested in the rural countryside. Things happen out there that are very strange to city dwellers. "
John Sandford
Things Happen
City
Strange
" I really do need the help of other people working with me. "
John Sandford
Need
Other
People
" Most people who are trying to write kind of sit in their basements and pull it out of their imaginations. "
John Sandford
Trying
Write
Sit