For me, writing a story is an exercise in problem-solving. The obvious problem, of course, is how do I get my characters from Point A to Point ZZ? However, the reason for writing a story is to solve a more specific problem. In the case of Guardians, the initial problem was figuring out how vampires can guarantee a clean blood supply in an age of so many blood-borne pathogens. Their solution produced other problems to solve, which eventually led to Carlos Santiago and Rob Mackie devising a plan to rescue all of the kidnapped children that made up the vampires’ living blood bank.

In much the same way, The Janus Project began with wondering how to hide marquee witnesses effectively in the Marshals Service’s Witness Security Program in our current surveillance society. Placing John Callan in the past solved that problem, but Morgan Ropp had her own special problem to solve: find Callan and kill him herself.