Everyone has advice for story writers. We feel that Miranda Parker makes a very apt recommendation: “At the same time, don’t give yourself away. If you don’t know, don’t go there. My rule of thumb is, if I don’t know something without looking it up, I’m usually better off working around it. When you drop in undigested research morsels, the reader can feel it in his teeth” (“Don’t Write What You Know. Write Like You Know,” Miranda Parker, J. Mark Bertrand, thethrillbegins.blogspot.ca, September 20, 2012).

We spent months researching an illness for Cordo: one that would be incurable, that would advance relatively quickly but whose progress could be slowed. We didn’t find anything conclusive, and in the end, we decided to keep the illness vague rather than become mired in pointless explanations. Ultimately, we don’t think the story suffers from it.