HHere’s the Q&A on how and what I write.
I’m afraid I haven’t credited the inquisitors, as that would have taken a bit of time.
But you know who you are, and I thank you for playing.
If you don’t see your specific question answered, I probably thought it overlapped with another.
I did not proof anyone’s spelling or grammar, including my own.
So an even playing field there.
-c
Q: Really wanted to get some color as to your process. How much you know about a story before you start, how clear a picture you have about point-of-view, timeline, secondary characters, etc. When you get going, do you find yourself having to revisit things a lot, to accommodate and new idea presented later in the story? Start to finish, how long will it take for you to research and write a book, and do you research as you go, or get it all lined up beforehand?
A: I definitely have a character point of view when I start. That is, I know who is telling the story. Sometimes I may use more than one POV, but I usually have an idea of who they are and when they’ll start to have a voice.
Beyond that is gets kind of sketchy. Depending on how long a book has been gestating, I may have quite few supporting characters and scenes that I know I want to use. I almost always have an ending. Maybe not the exact scene, but I know where I want the protagonist to end up. That target point may shift as I go.
Plotting is largely flexible for me. I get a story rolling and make adjustments as I go. I’ll frequently be surprised by an opportunity to try something I hadn’t planned, and find myself backtracking to make what’s come before match up with the change.
Q: Also, do you have, for lack of a better phrase, a mission statement for each book? Is there something specific you try to accomplish, aside from write something worth reading? For instance, with Sleepless (finished it), did you start out wanting to write a story about a heroic character actions in the face of apparently insurmountable odds, or did you think the illness would be a cool idea, and built Park and went from there?
A: I’d say no mission statement. With SLEEPLESS the world came first. Once I started thinking about the kind of story I wanted to tell inside that world Park began to take on shape. But there’s a lot of chicken and egg involved. Hard to say which aspects leads and which follow.
Q: How extensively did you to craft the world for the Joe Pitt series before you could finish drafting the first book?
A: I didn’t make any plans for the world before starting. It just built itself up as I moved the story forward. That got me through 100 pages. At that point I spent several years working on other things. When I returned to Joe it was in an effort to sell the series. At that point I needed to put together a series bible. Essentially a guidebook that indicated I knew what the fuck I was doing and that I had a plan. I didn’t really have a plan, but I made it sound like I did. Check out the Joe Pitt category here and you’ll find most of the series bible in an old post somewhere.
Q: What kind of whiskey(whisky) do you generally drink while writing? Scotch? Single Malt? Bourbon? American Boutique? Favorite?
A: I don’t generally drink when I write. But I do sometimes imbibe when I’m reading drafts. I’m a bourbon guy. Mostly Wild Turkey. Mostly 101.
Q: Do you still happen to have the microwave, that without fail, would always burn microwave popcorn?
A: Dude, I blamed the microwave back then, but now I think it was mostly that I was stoned 90% of the time.
Q: Any possibility of any of your works on the silver screen?
A: Currently there are options out on the Joe Pitt series and the Henry Thompson trilogy. Phoenix Films has Joe, and, while I know they have a script, I don’t know where they are in the development process. The production company that has the Thompson books has yet to announce the option and I’m not at liberty to say more.
The odds of either of these projects making it to film are very slim to none. That’s just the Hollywood equation.
Q: Anyway, you said people could email you and ask about your writing process, so one thing I’ve always wondered about with the mystery element of your writing is just how much you have plotted out before you sit down to write a book. For example, in the Joe Pitt books he’s basically a detective of sorts, and by the end of the book you learn about the complex series of events that have taken place behind the scenes throughout the novel. As a reader it seems like you (the author) knew the minute details all along, because the trail Joe’s been following since the first page has been riddled with clues as to what’s happened, and by the big payoff scene in the last ten pages it all makes sense in retrospect. Lots of “A-ha!” moments and all that. So my question is whether you plan the “secret plot” in advance or whether you figure it out as you go along and maybe go back to previous sections of the book once you’re done and riddle it with clues. I know some writers subscribe to the “I just sit down and don’t plan and let the characters write the book” theory, but that seems difficult in books where mysteries and an intricate plot play a significant role.
A: I sometimes know the secret behind the scenes, but it usually evolves along with everything else. I always knew the Coalition had a secret blood farm, but I didn’t know how I’d handle the reveal and exactly the consequences until I got there.
Q: I have to ask, your characters are always so multi-layered and their stories on the fringe of society, where do your ideas and backstories come from? Are characters like Hank Thompson and Web Goodhue based on people you know, or do you literally develop them from “thin air”? Just curious, but I always wind up asking myself the same question after finishing each book, “how the heck did he come up with that?”
A: Well no one works entirely from thin air. We all absorb information and experience. Otherwise we wouldn’t have any raw material to turn into fiction. Some of my characters have been based fairly explicitly on people I’ve known. In SIX BAD THINGS the character T is loosely modeled on a close friend. Likewise, there are locations that are drawn specifically from my life. The bar where Hank works in CAUGHT STEALING was very much like one where I worked for many years. BUt it’s all larded with fiction. None of my books are thinly veiled memoir. I think that should be obvious, but I though I’d point it out in case anyone is wondering if I’m a vampire.
Q: So - in Sleepless so far - what the fuck, man? Quotation marks????? What’s up with that?
A: So OK, me and the lack of quotation marks. I’ve written and talked about this more that the topic warrants, but let’s do it again for context. I’m a miserable typist. And When I was writing CAUGHT STEALING I was a truly miserable typist. I was, and am, also a huge Cormac McCarthy fan. So two things went into the dashes: First, I was trying to reduce the number of key strokes needed to write a fucking novel. Second, I was trying to find a way to make the dialogue flow down the page like McCarthy does, but also give a reader a visual cue so that they knew I was skipping from prose to dialogue. As I was writing entirely for myself, I didn’t really have to worry about how it might be off-putting to an editor or publisher. In fact, many years later when I unexpectedly ended up with a publisher, I assumed that I’d be asked to put in quotation marks. A request that I’d have happily complied with. But that wasn’t the case. Over the years using the dashes became a habit. It’s not meant as a creative declaration, it’s just how I write. Now, as for SLEEPLESS, the reason I used quotation marks there is because the book is written with the conceit that someone other than myself has written it. It is quite specifically one of the written account of one of the characters in the book. That being the case, it seemed more appropriate that the book have more traditional punctuation and storytelling. A style that is consistent with the character.
Q: How do you go about creating your characters? Is the the characters first and personality first? Or do you create a world then the people?
A: I think I usually have a sense of character before anything else. That was certainly the case with Hank Thompson, Joe Pitt, the SHOTGUN RULE boys, and Web Goodhue. With SLEEPLESS, the world and the characters evolved hand in hand.
Q: My second would be how do you decide on the point of view to write the book? Sleepless (and I’m not done yet with it about halfway) was interesting because you had two different point of views in your writing, both first and third. I thought that was neat. Why did you decide to do that?
A: With the Hank and Joe books, that first person present tense style was what came naturally. By the time I got to THE SHOTGUN RULE I felt that I needed to try a different voice just to avoid becoming stale, so I went to third person present. In MYSTIC ARTS, I wanted room for more humor, for Web to be able to comment on the action and indulge his voice. That meant I needed to go first person past. SLEEPLESS was tricky because I wanted the story to be told by someone within the book, but I also wanted Park (the protagonist) to be heard in his own voice. Eventually I decided on using Park’s journal entries, a second character’s first person accounts, and that same character’s third person interpretation of Park’s story. As with MYSTIC ARTS, I really wanted more room that present tense allows to fill in a lot more detail than I usually use. Inner life stuff as well as the world itself.
Q: But I’m really interested in the character creation. From what I’ve read on the internet on what writers enjoy doing it’s the character creation. So I’d love your method on that because you have such great characters. They’re never completely lovable or completely despised. That reminds me of reality.
A: I’m sure every writer has a different aspect of the process that they love best, but I do enjoy building characters. It’s a cliche to say that you “meet” the characters as you write them, but I do find that often to be the case. I start with one pretty clear idea of who they will be and find them reshaping as I put them on the page. I initially though that Hank would be a tough guy. A neighborhood fixer who people came to with their problems. But when I put him on the page he became more of an innocent, and not very tough at all. Or at least not in the traditional detective mold.
Q: On a more curious level was the Mystic Art of Erasing All Signs of Death release as positive as the front cover seems to suggest? The publisher really does seem to pushing you as a, forgive the term, “general fiction” writer. The cover is understated and virtually colorless. I apologize if that sounds condescending in anyway, but the evolution of the covers (to mention nothing of content) struck me as odd and wondered if you had any words that suggested something more than me seeing Jesus on a grilled cheese sandwich.
A: Actually the MYSTIC ARTS cover was part of a very conscious strategy on the part of my publisher. And yes, an element in that strategy was to reach out to a more general readership. The intention wasn’t so much an effort to create a “literary” appearance as it was to veer away from a distinctly pup image. They wanted to imply something, forgive me, hip or cutting edge, while also suggesting that there was good writing inside as well as a entertaining plot. Cover design is a kind of alchemy. There tends to be a level of consensus when a striking cover is created, but that doesn’t mean there is agreement as to what we al think that striking cover is signaling, I love the MYSIC ARTS cover, by the way. I think it’s my favorite of all the American covers.
Q: Is your recent change in writing style going to be a more prominent throughout the rest of your books, or will you, perhaps, be going back to the Thompson Trilogy/Pitt Casebooks Narrative style of kick-you-in-fucking-nuts? (The best descriptor I could come up with in three seconds)
A: I don’t think this is a going to be a lasting shift for me. So far I’ve tended to hop around a bit in terms of voice and tone. Even Hank and Joe, both speaking in first person present tense, had very different attitudes that made writing them seem like very different tasks. I think there is a good chance that my next novel will be a kind of companion piece to SLEEPLESS. The story I’ve been thinking about would probably require a similar style. But after that I see myself either returning to Web Goodhue in a MYSTIC ARTS sequel, or writing an entirely new hardboiled story. Although I still have a fantasy novel in the back of my mind that I’d like to squeeze in somewhere.
Q: Hell damn, how did you get that perspective, how did you, as a young writer, absorb the pulp/noir thing and, then == then, having absorbed it, how did you manage to turn it into a truly new and interesting trope?
A: You know, I’m not sure how anyone can explain where their perspective comes from. I mean, for all intents and purposes, that’s like trying to explain why I am who I am. All I can really say is that I read a lot of genre fiction as a kid, loved it, really, really loved it, and then tried to tell genre stories that I’d want to read if someone else wrote them. Not terribly helpful, I know, but that’s what I got.
Q: As far as questions theres one more i’d ask and it’s not that important really. But i am curious on your particular method of research. For sleepless you obviously had to learn the slang of the net world, and for The Shotgun rule you had to learn oldschool punk rock (ok that seems easy). For Pitt you had to learn the New York area (which i know knowthing of, but in contrast you wrote a book in L.A. with sleepless). The way i figure it you just do regular research. Read about it and visit the areas? You do a great job making the characters really seem like they know and are a part of those worlds.
A: The most truly active research I’ve engaged in has been for SLEEPLESS and the Joe Pitt book. In SLEEPLESS I needed to have at least a casual familiarity with fatal familial insomnia so that I could fictionalize it as SLP in the book. Similarly, in the Pitt books, I needed to know a little something about blood and viruses. But in my books all the research results in is pseudo science, at best. The other stuff you mention, old school punk, NYC street geography, gaming slang, that’s just scattered around my brain from life. Mostly I don’t do hardcore research on a specific project. I just get interested in things and learn about them and sometimes they pop up in my books.
Q: What do you do when you hit a wall creativly? I find I work very well for a week or two but they I lose focus. Any sugestions?
A: Short answer: I keep working. Even when I don’t like what I’m writing, I just keep writing. But that’s what my job is. It’s also important to note that until my mid-thirties I never suspected that I might write one novel, let alone eleven. Something I learned along the way is that self-discipline is a skill that can be cultivated. The more you force yourself to just to the work regardless of how hard or easy it may be on a given day, the more you force yourself to keep to a schedule, the easier it becomes to do it the next day. The only way I know to maintain focus is to eliminate as many distractions as possible. After that it’s all a matter of how important it is to you to get the job done.
Q: How do you ballance being a Husband, Father, and working class writer?
A: Again, it’s my job, All of those are my job, as well as my great pleasures. but for perspective, I did write my first novel while I was a single man. And while I had to do it while working a day job, there were no other real distractions. I was married by the time I wrote any other novels, but I was able to live off advance money while I wrote them, and still no kids. By the time I became a father, I had a lot of practice doing this. I knew I could do it. So it was more a matter of learning how to become a dad and fitting in my work where I could. Also, by the time I became a dad I could support my family with my writing. So, while the work had to get done to keep food on the table, no one else in the house had to work. Balancing a day job with family life and writing is no mean trick. Remember to cut yourself some slack. It’s not supposed to be easy. Any of it.
Q: Here’s what I wonder about your writing style — do you use a pencil, pen and paper to write first draft, or a computer? Do you think your writing differs depending upon the writing tool?
A: Other than notes, I write on a computer. I do so much editing as I write each draft, it’s almost inconceivable to me how I would write without a computer. Which speaks to the second half of your question. Yes, I do thing your tools change your writing. If it wasn’t so easy for me to edit, I might spend more time on contemplation of the perfect phrase, or I might be more willing to let a questionable plot choice stand. I’m also inclined to use fewer words when writing my hand with a pen or pencil. But I love all writing tools. I’m constantly trying to find the perfect pen, I own two manual typewriters, and I tinker with new word processing programs on a fairly regular basis. Just now I’m a fan of Scribner. A very good tool for organizing multiple documents and text sources. But nothing beats the feeling of a good pen and a notebook.