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- Author interview - |
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| Tess Gerritsen is the New York Times bestselling author of four medical thrillers and nine romantic thrillers, who took an unusual route to a writing career. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford University, Tess went on to medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, and was awarded her M.D. in 1979. After completing her internal medicine residency, Tess worked as a physician in Honolulu, Hawaii. While on maternity leave, she began to write fiction. On a whim, she submitted aliterary short story to Honolulu Magazine's statewide fiction contest - and won first place. In 1987, Tess's first novel was published. Call After Midnight, a romantic thriller, was soon followed by eight more romantic suspense novels. She also wrote a screenplay, "Adrift," which aired as a 1993 CBS Movie of the Week starring Kate Jackson. It was a chance dinner conversation that inspired Tess to write her first medical thriller. And a new career was launched. Read our reviews of Bloodstream and Gravity. Feature by PJ Nunn. PJ NUNN - Tess, your work is unique and so well researched. Could you tell us a little about how you prepared to write your latest novel, GRAVITY? TESS GERRITSEN - The research for GRAVITY was a labor of love. I've been fascinated by the space program since Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, while I was in high school, and have followed NASA news quite closely. So to be able to visit Houston and Cape Canaveral was like playtime for me. I spent a week at both sites, and was given access to engineers, flight surgeons, and flight directors. I got the "inside tour" of mission control in Houston. I also read flight manuals, studied Space Station blueprints, and collected a huge library of information about everything from flight medicine to spacesuits. The most difficult part for me was getting the language down right. Folks at NASA don't speak the way "normal people" do - they speak in acronyms, and I wanted to capture the flavor of NASA dialogue. It added greatly to the difficulty of writing GRAVITY because in order for me to give my readers a taste of "real" space-speak, I was in essence introducing them to a foreign language. The result, I hope, is a book in which things really do feel authentic. You've chosen not to go the route of series writing. How difficult is it to create a whole new cast of characters and settings with each book? I think I must have a problem with attention deficit disorder - I keep wanting to move onto new subjects and new characters. This explains in part why I choose to write stand-alone books. While this adds to how much work it takes to produce each new book, it ensures that I'm never bored with my characters. Indeed, to repeat my characters in a later book would simply feel forced. In each book, I put my heroes through such horrible crises and such broad character arcs that I don't see how I could realistically write them into a sequel. How many times can a character save the future of the planet? How many international conspiracies can a character uncover before the whole series feels ridiculous? Also, there's the problem of movie rights. When I sell to Hollywood, the producer buys the rights to the characters. If I want to sell movie rights to a sequel, those characters would be tied up with the earlier film deal. So there are both practical and artistic reasons not to repeat characters. Of those you've published so far, which was the most difficult to write? Strangely enough, Bloodstream. I say strangely enough because it was the one that required the least amount of research. Yet it was so intensely personal - dealing in part with a mother's struggles to raise her difficult teenage son - that I had to come to terms with a number of emotions while writing it. Also, the claustrophobic setting, a small Maine town in winter where unexplainable violence is breaking out, meant I didn't have the freedom to paint across a broad canvas. It was like painting a "big" painting in a very small space. What do you have in the works now and when might we expect it? I'm working on a novel about a serial killer who chooses his victims in a rather creepy way - through the medical profession. I'm still on my first draft, but am now approaching the climax, so I expect it will appear in print sometime in 2001. You're also an MD. How did you get started writing? Sheer boredom! I was on maternity leave from my medical residency, and while waiting at home for my first son to be born I began writing short stories. I've always enjoyed writing, and I thought: it's now or never. A few published short stories later I began my first novel. Pretty soon, the writing became my obsession, and the medical career fell by the wayside. Has your writing changed since that first book? Very much so. I now feel bolder about approaching new subjects, about tackling a plot that before would have completely intimidated me. I started off writing romantic suspense, which was pure fun. Now I try to focus on suspense, and have incorporated much more science and technology in my books. Because I now have the freedom to write longer books, the plots have become far more complex, and I'm able to incorporate scientific details that fascinate me. In a romance, it's hard to justify spending much time explaining the pathology of plane crash deaths, as I did in GRAVITY. Has your writing won any awards? I've received the Reviewer's Choice Award from Romantic Times Magazine. Who are you when you're not writing? What are your hobbies? My big passion is Celtic music. I play the violin, and I can't think of anything that gives me more pleasure than sitting with a bunch of other musicians in a jam session. Who or what has most influenced your writing? Sheer curiosity has always been a driving force. I’ll learn an interesting fact - say, the existence of weird single-cell organisms in the deep sea. Then I wonder what their origins are. How would these cells behave in weightlessness? That gets a plot going, and before I know it, I'm driven by curiosity to find out what happens to my characters. I never start writing a book knowing how it's going to turn out. Every book is a voyage of discovery for me as well. Maybe it's not the most efficient way to write a book, but it's how I keep myself interested. As a writer, where do you see yourself in 10 years? Writing whatever I want to write. And taking as long as I need to do it! Sounds good to me! What do you enjoy most about writing? Exploring a world that is completely new to me. For instance, I'm now writing from the point of view of a character who is obsessed with human sacrifice through the ages. So of course I have to find out everything there is to know about human sacrifice. I'm learning things that are grotesque, bloody, and utterly fascinating. What do you find most difficult? Sitting down and writing scenes when I'm not certain where I'm going. Dealing with my insecurities. Waking up in the middle of the night and thinking: "I'm stuck. I'll never write another book." I've gone through these stages so many times now, that at least I recognize them as temporary difficulties. What’s the best advice you have for new writers? Finish the book. With every book I write, I go through the 'this is no good, let's start over' stage. If I listened to that insecurity, I'd never finish a book. The trick is to simply plunge ahead, keep writing through the bad patches, and when the first draft is completed, then go back and fix things up. Previous publications - More details can be found by visiting the author's website at: http://www.tessgerritsen.com Medical thrillers - Harvest Life Support Bloodstream Gravity Romantic thrillers - Call After Midnight Under the Knife Never Say Die Whistleblower Presumed Guilty Peggy Sue Got Murdered In Their Footsteps Thief of Hearts Keeper of the Bride Screenplay - "Adrift" - a CBS movie of the week starring Kate Jackson, aired 1993. |
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