I've always had a fondness for the Gothic. That's what kind of stories attract me: Why do people do bad things?

That's always been part of my goal - to show the dark side of women. Men write about bad men all the time, and they're called antiheroes.

I always loved ghost stories and haunted house stories, whether they were done in a fantasy way or done in a realistic way.

My mother had always told her kids: if you're about to do something, and you want to know if it's a bad idea, imagine seeing it printed in the paper for all the world to see.

For me, suspense is always harder and better than going for the quick, outright scare.

It was one of the few stories we told the same way.