Goodreads asked Susan McCormick:

What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

Susan McCormick Plotting is smart, or you will end up with too few suspects, as I did with my first draft of THE FOG LADIES. Then lovely, innocent characters have to be turned into potential murderers. However, though I try to plot and plan, along the way, with fingers flying on keypad keys, writing magic happens. Characters do unexpected things and get themselves into trouble. One of my characters, Enid Carmichael, discovers Starbucks lattes at the ripe old age of eighty. She loves the bitterness, the froth. I wrote that. Then she craved more, and the next thing I knew, she was stealing Starbucks coupons from her neighbor’s newspaper to feed her addiction. She did that. Not me. Give your characters a little space to be themselves, because the surprises they bring will delight you and your readers.

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