I think working my way through that process, begin with the end and then work your way back to where you began. Sometimes that’s a year, sometimes it’s 18 months, where all I’m doing is taking notes. I’m reconstructing the story from the back to the front so that I know where the front is. Now people always ask me, “Well surely something changes. Surely somewhere along the way you get a better idea.” In the sequence of events in the middle of the story, that’s often true. Sometimes a character I had never thought of — a minor character or a major/minor one— will make an appearance in the middle of the story and move the story in a slightly different way. But the ending never changes. It never has. Eleven novels, it never has changed. I might fool around with that first sentence over time, but I won’t fool around with the last. It’s as clear as a note of music. It is where I’m going.