"The opening is the most important part of the novel. This applies to almost every work of fiction, but particularly suspense novels," she writes in
The Writer magazine. Roberts continues, "The opening has to have that narrative hook, that grabber that makes a reader turn the page and become immediately absorbed in the story."
As readers become absorbed in Nightmare, they find Nick's suspicions of foul play confirmed when he takes off on an interstate trip in the family motorhome to visit his brother and finds that he and his stowaway passenger, Daisy, are being followed by two menacing bad guys who must be daringly eluded until the teen-aged pair can unravel the mystery of the "accident" at the overpass. Roberts explains in The Writer that she usually doesn't know in advance exactly how things will turn out in her mysteries: "It's more fun for me to write if the action develops out of the characters, when I say 'What would I do if I were confronted by this problem"' What I would actually do would be to get hysterical and call the cops, but one's protagonist must have more fortitude than that.
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