Once I have a hook I think has potential - enough to spin out more than a hundred thousand words, then I start turning my attention to characters. Who are these people? Why did this thing happen to them? But the hook always comes first.
“The best thing about writing programs is that it rationalized the apprenticeship of a writer.”
“In terms of the way people see me, it breaks down into two very clear and distinct groups: those who think they know me from reading the papers and those who really know me by reading my books.”