Harlan Coben is the master of the plot twist. He's published 35 novels and sold more than 100 million books. This conversation is all about how he writes. Here are the highlights: 1) Keep enough fear to stop yourself from phoning it in. He says: "Every writer I know who thinks they’re really good actually sucks." 2) Write your first draft knowing nobody gets to see how bad it is. This is your chance to break every writing rule because nobody's going to read what you wrote 3) How do you create suspense? By answering questions, then making the answers open bigger questions. 4) Write dialogue people would want to overhear. Ask yourself: “If I were sitting at a pub, is this the conversation I would want to overhear?” If the answer is no, make it better. 5) Give your dialogue a reason to happen: Don’t just put two people in a pub and have them talk. Imagine someone has keeled over, or a fight has broken out, and they’re debating whether to intervene. Now the conversation has a purpose. 6) Start in the middle, where there’s already a story happening. Don’t have your character walk into the church, sit down, and notice the flowers. Put him in the back pew watching the only woman he’ll ever love marry another man. Now we’re engaged. 7) Find the one detail that brings the whole scene to life: A group of mystery writers once debated the scariest sound in the world. Warren Murphy said: you’re alone in a cabin in the woods, and upstairs, you hear the toilet flush. That’s the moment you’re looking for. 8) Make room for quiet, or your loud moments won’t mean anything. If your story is always storming, a rainstorm won’t matter. Think of a placid pond: a small rock makes a ripple. But throw a boulder in a churning ocean, and nobody will notice. 9) Know your ending so you can afford to get lost along the way. Harlan says: "I know I’m driving from New Jersey to Los Angeles. I might take a detour through the Panama Canal and stop in Tokyo, but I know where I’m going. That gives me freedom. I can go off the main road because there’s a destination in the GPS. Knowing the ending lets me explore more without panicking that I’m completely lost." 10) Don't tell people what you're writing before you finish it. If you're at a cocktail party and start explaining your book, you'll almost feel the air coming out of the balloon. You'll get satisfaction without doing the work when all your satisfaction should be coming from finishing the book. 11) Don't expect to be good when you start writing: Harlan's first published novel was the fourth he'd written. You could have the skill of LeBron James, but if you’ve never played basketball, you’re going to suck when you get on that court. Why would writing be different? — — Timestamps: 0:34 How to find your next idea 4:02 Know your ending first 10:21 Why talent isn’t enough 13:45 Only bad writers think they’re good 18:30 What keeps Harlan going 23:47 Books vs TV adaptations 28:48 The mistake most writers make 35:06 What makes for good dialogue 43:08 Your themes find you 47:39 What he learned from Hitchcock 57:01 Making the boring parts interesting 59:58 How Harlan writes chapters 1:02:23 Main vs secondary characters 1:04:37 Don’t talk about your book 1:06:46 Why routines stop working 1:10:12 Stop making excuses 1:12:30 Genre vs form I've shared the full conversation with Harlan Coben below. If you'd rather watch on YouTube, or listen to the episode on Apple / Spotify, check out the reply tweets. Enjoy!