The Science of Fiction with 'Project Suicide' Author John Bukowski

Join us as we sit down with John Bukowski, whose novel "Project Suicide" draws from a rich tapestry of personal and professional experiences. We'll uncover the intricate process of weaving real-world scientific concepts into compelling fiction, creating stories that thrill while ringing plausible and authentic. John shares his journey from technical writing to fiction, shedding light on how his diverse experiences fuel his creative process and the "what if" scenarios that drive his narratives. Whether you're an aspiring writer or an avid reader, this episode is packed with valuable insights.

Learn more about John at the following links:
www.projectsuicidenovel.com
www.checkouttimenovel.com
www.thrillerjohnb.net
https://www.facebook.com/wwc.johnb
@jabukow2021
https://tremendous-motivator-8914.ck.page/95736090a5

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:01

Hi guys, and welcome to Language of the Soul podcast, where life is story. As usual, I'd like to encourage you to please follow or subscribe to us. It's the best way to get notifications when a new episode drops and that way you can help us build our platform. This is definitely a labor of love, but we want to get to the point of it being sustainable so we can keep providing inspiring content. So, again, please like, follow or subscribe to us, or all of the above. Next, I would love to invite our producer extraordinaire. That's her standard title and we're doing two episodes back to back today, so this morning she got a title, but for the first time ever, I'm going to give her a second title and I'm going to call you the Energizer Bunny.

Speaker 2 0:56

Oh well, thank you, I just keep on going.

Speaker 1 1:00

You really do. It's impressive.

Speaker 2 1:02

Oh, thank you, I try, I try my best.

Speaker 1 1:04

Yeah, I won't air your dirty laundry again today, but we've had a trying couple weeks, so thank you for hanging in there and for being here. I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 1:12

No, I'm glad to be here. I love doing these shows. It means a lot, and I like seeing that people are getting something out of what we have to share too.

Speaker 1 1:25

So it's a win-win Right on. Yeah, that's been the consensus. Truly, we've gotten some pretty good feedback and it's serving a lot of people out there, so we're going to keep it up, like it or not, okay. So today's guest, hopefully, will be equally inspiring, and I'm confident that will be the case, because I researched him probably as much as I had time for. But I'm excited and I think it's going to be a great episode. I'm going to do something I don't normally do, by the way. I know that sounds ominous, but before I read his bio because right after reading the guest's bios I usually give them a chance to fix anything that I botched but I first want to read a either synopsis or plot summary or a book jacket blurb. There's a lot of interchangeable terms, but I was so intrigued by Project Suicide that I'm which I'm definitely going to pick up that I thought I would read that first and then we'll hopefully talk about it as an example of his creative process. You know how he acts on inspiration. He talked a lot about research in his pre interview, and so I think Project Suicide might be a good one to use to talk about those topics. But more importantly, it's just a great, really intriguing. I'm calling it a synopsis, so I'm going to read the synopsis, then the bio. All right Project Suicide.

Speaker 1 2:38

High-profile politicians are dying by their own hand. These aren't aged bureaucrats breaking under the strain of political baggage. They're rising stars whose stresses and scandals are still ahead of them. Only genius scientist Dr Deacon Creel knows how to save them. There's one problem though he now prefers the bottle to the laboratory and the alley to the office. Creel is about to get tossed in jail for public drunkenness when he's bailed out by Homeland Security. Big shot Nelson Barzun, one of the few who know how a cure for Alzheimer's was perverted into an assassin's dream. Barzun wants Creel back in his old job at Unit 13, clandestine biodefense lab. Only Creel knows the antidote to this plague of suicides, but he's tormented by his guilt for his part in releasing it upon the world and for what it cost him. With the help of a quirky lesbian assistant and a female Marine corpsman who's a constant reminder of the price he paid, creel races against time to stop the carnage before he and his pals become the next victims. Do-do-do I love. That Definitely makes me want to pick it up, which I will. All right, so here's John's bio.

Speaker 1 3:52

Over a 40-year career, john Bukowski has gone from veterinary practitioner to epidemiologist, to medical writer and novelist. He currently writes fast-paced thrillers such as Project Suicide and the recently published Checkout Time, as well as shorter fiction. John grew up in a factory worker family of six kids in Motown. At each step along his path he's needed to embrace change and tackle the challenges of a new direction something we've talked about a lot today in Virginia. Each step has taught him to be a stronger writer. About a lot today, virginia. Each step has taught him to be a stronger writer. John loves chatting about his writer's journey and the process he uses to turn what-if scenarios into novels and short stories. John has extensive experience in public speaking, including numerous appearances on theatrical stages, tv radio, podcasts, seminars, workshops, civic groups and book clubs. Podcasts, seminars, workshops, civic groups and book clubs. Welcome, john Bukowski.

Speaker 3 4:46

Well, thank you. Wonderful to be here.

Speaker 1 4:49

We're glad to have you.

Speaker 3 4:51

Yes.

Speaker 1 4:51

Is there anything you want to correct in the bio?

Speaker 1 4:56

No that's pretty much me. Okay, as long as it sounds remotely familiar, that's all we hope for. But to dovetail right off of the synopsis, hopefully. And I do want to back up a little bit and maybe talk about what makes you a writer, what you know over the years. When did you begin to identify as a writer, what makes you a storyteller, if you identify as such? But just for starters, maybe you could tell us, while it's still fresh and vivid, what inspired Project Suicide, and then maybe tell us a little bit about how you moved forward to execute it.

Speaker 3 5:28

I first came up with Project Suicide probably about six or seven years ago. The idea, and writers are big on what if, and I had just, I used to do weekly visits to my father-in-law, who was in a assisted living facility and he was suffering from dementia nothing severe, but he would forget, like if it's night or day and things like that. And I certainly knew that dementia is a is a pressing problem now and lots of companies, lots of organizations are looking for cures or ways to improve dementia. And so I started thinking what if there was a cure but the cure had a side effect? And I was trying to think of you know what's the best? I mean, what's the best? What's the most serious side effect, most interesting side effect you can think of?

Speaker 3 6:24

And certainly death is an extreme side effect, but that's literally is not that interesting. Just, you know you take something and you die. So I said to myself, what if there was a genetic problem, that the drug, as it was curing Alzheimer's, which is a genetic illness, it blocked another gene for self-preservation, and so as you gained consciousness and your sense of self, you would also gain a sense of self-loathing. Wow, and that was pretty good, wow, and that was pretty good. And I said to myself what if you gave it to somebody who didn't even have dementia? Then they would get the self-loathing and kill themselves and as an assassination drug.

Speaker 1 7:21

That's perfect, Yep.

Speaker 3 7:21

Because you are totally blameless. The person does it themselves, right, right and that's where the idea came from.

Speaker 1 7:27

I love it. It's fascinating. I mean, it's so plausible too. Every drug does have a side effect, right? And sometimes you've got to wonder how it messes with something that actually has value in terms of DNA, Right.

Speaker 3 7:40

And all drugs are a tradeoff Yep, always, whether it's a cancer drug that you know has some serious side effects, killing cells, or whether it's aspirin, there is always something there that you know. I once saw in the movie the Fugitive, which is a wonderful movie with Harrison Ford. But the guy is giving his speech and he says the drug has no side effects whatsoever. And my wife and I she's also a veterinarian we really laugh at that, because all drugs have some type of side effect, contraindication, something associated with them, and that's something especially with COVID. People are much more attuned to now is the potential for adverse reactions, adverse events, whether it's a vaccine or from a treatment.

Speaker 1 8:34

But also, I think, as a premise. Conspiracy theories are at an all-time high, for sure, and for very good reason. I think we're in kind of an adolescent phase, right Of seeing through the matrix a little bit, and you know.

Speaker 3 8:48

I'm an artist, because your paranoid doesn't mean people are not to get you Right, right, exactly so.

Speaker 1 8:53

I'm well in my world because I'm an artist. I identify as somebody who never bought socialization. To begin with, I didn't buy the usual suspect and I've kind of you know that's just my worldview. And and I've kind of you know that's just my worldview. And so I just see people I don't know if it's because they legalized but because people were smoking it already or what the hell's going on, but it's almost like people are high on this drug of not buying hook line and sinker what's being offered as the status quo, but they're new to it, right. So it takes the form of just adopting whatever conspiracy theory comes along. But I think when something so profound like the pandemic happens that really hadn't happened in our lifetime, people come up with really elaborate explanations, right, because it's so novel and new. And so I'm not. You know, I've got my own, or I on a bad day. I had some pretty dark theories about it. A friend made the mistake of sending me the. Did you ever hear about the G5 conspiracy theory?

Speaker 3 9:50

I may have, but I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 9:52

Yeah, they correlated it with the rollout of G5, but they make these documentaries so high production values and so convincing. Like for one night. I bought into it and it happened to be the day I was going down to the hotbed of COVID, lac USC Medical Center, so I bought it for one night. I bought into it and it happened to be the day I was going down to the hotbed of COVID at LAC USC Medical Center, so I bought it for one day. But I just see how it is a prime moment right to kind of tap into this. And then I think it's also a really resonant trope for government agencies like the CIA or the FBI to hijack research for its own purposes. That's alive and well too.

Speaker 3 10:28

And that's and that's. I kind of tapped in with this book to a bunch of things that were, were and are prevalent in the public mind the idea of uh you know suicides being on the rise, the idea of government conspiracies or government control, the fear of big pharma, the fear of side effects, concerns about dementia and losing yourself to a disease, losing your mind, losing your identity, your personality, right. And so all of those kind of come together in Project Suicide.

Speaker 1 11:02

It's very timely. Well, one hopes right things are universal and they stand the test of time, but it seems very relevant and very timely at this moment. For sure, and I haven't even read it, but the premise, you know. Yeah, it taps into all of that, have you found? Is that the feedback that you've gotten?

Speaker 3 11:21

Yeah, a lot of people have said it's timely. A lot of people have said, you know government overreach and all those things, yeah, it's been. I've spoken to quite a few book clubs and stuff and that seems to be their consensus as well, you know.

Speaker 1 11:38

Something else comes to mind too. I'm going to go out on a limb here. Have either of you. Are either of you Kate Bush fans by chance?

Speaker 2 11:45

I am.

Speaker 1 11:46

I knew it. Oh really, I was like Kate Bush. Anyway, she had that song, experiment 4, I think it was, and they told us all they wanted was a sound that would kill someone from a distance. Anyway, it's a great song. Far be it from me to impose my tastes, but if any listeners out there don't know kate bush, check her out. It's about, um, sonic waves as a weapon of mass destruction, right, and so that thing happened in cuba, remember that? Right? So that's actually on the public radar too. Kind of these unconventional ways of creating mass destruction.

Speaker 3 12:27

Yeah, and that's the other thing. It's kind of a—I have it as an assassination drug, not as a weapon of mass destruction, but you could—you certainly could expand it into that.

Speaker 1 12:40

Yeah, and I think—exactly. And the pandemic bio-war warfare was on a lot of people's minds as well. So what stake did the government have? Oh, so it was for a specific hit, like on a world leader, for example. Well it wasn't yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 3 12:56

Yeah, you'd have to read the book to find out. But these politicians are dying off. And there's Deacon thinks there's a pattern, but he can't put his finger on it.

Speaker 2 13:09

And as you go in further, uh, he recognizes what the pattern is and that kind of leads to the big climax okay, no spoilers, I get it well, as I said, it kind of is giving me a little bit of like that um, you know, archetype kind of concept between, like caregiver so sorry, I need to back up. So carl young talks about caregivers and the shadow and it kind of like fits to me a little bit from like listening to you guys about um kind of that art type you know.

Speaker 3 13:41

So I guess good was good versus evil, but you know more deeper into like the psychological aspect of human nature and and one of the things that's really important in project suicide for both deacon and his, his aid to camp, his alter ego, whatever amy uh is that they are forced to make decisions for the greater good that do not necessarily fit in with their morality.

Speaker 1 14:14

So moral ambiguity is a theme, moral relativity.

Speaker 3 14:20

And that's certainly Deacon's, that's certainly Amy's, I would say character arc is coming to grips with that.

Speaker 1 14:30

Well, I think that's very relevant too right now, because when the sky is green and up is down and down is up, right. I just said in a Facebook post the other day, like I hardly recognize the planet I live on, let alone humanity as I understood it, this divisive moment, as they say, right. So I think, when you can, when the emperor's new clothes are alive and well and people are telling you the sky is green, you've got to wonder about the moral relativity, right, of even our codes that we live by, right.

Speaker 3 14:57

And certainly that's part of both Amy and Deacon's character arc is dealing with that. One of the reasons Deacon drinks so much is his guilt over those decisions that he's made and is making.

Speaker 1 15:15

I love it. Well, yeah, and I got that trope right Like he's got demons, he's tortured by them and yet he's being called to step back into an old in the spirit of our podcast right, an old role, an old narrative that perhaps he thought he had left behind in the dust, but clearly it's still a demon. Anyway, these are familiar tropes, but I'm sure you have a great way of making them new and fresh and relevant and dimensional. So, in that spirit, because some of our listeners are writers not all of them, but we've had a lot of indie authors on and indie publishers, and for those of us that do identify not just as storytellers but writers, often those listeners love to hear about process.

Speaker 1 15:52

So two things came up in your I keep calling it pre-interview, but in your forum you talked a lot about research, which I would love to pick your brain about, and how you turn these what if? Scenarios into fiction. So, to lay the groundwork for that, tell us a little bit about your journey from scientist to fiction writer. How did you transition from one to the other?

Speaker 3 16:12

Growing up, going to school and high school, undergrad and such. I'm a person who is blessed or you might say cursed with being very interested in a bunch of things, and my big loves, even back into grade school, were history, and I still love to read history, especially military history, english always been an avid reader and I loved writing and science. Now, when you're doing those it's I'm through high school, for example you can do all three kind of equally. But as you get into uh, college and then graduate school, especially if you want to become a veterinarian, you've got to focus right, you specialize. So I focused on the science and I I expanded that going on for my uh doctoral training in veterinary medicine, veterinaryinary practice, to an MPH, a master's and then a PhD in public health, epidemiology and doing research and so these other things I've still kept reading and stuff.

Speaker 3 17:14

But the writing and that kind of stuff has to go on a back burner and I kind of rediscovered it when I was doing medical writing, when I left corporate, the corporate world, and we hit the big recession and about 2008, 2009, I was doing medical writing and enjoying it, but my clients kind of dried up because they didn't have any money. I wasn't getting any money. You know, you're a freelancer, you don't get paid if the client's not making money. So I had time and my wife, fortunately, was still working. And so I said you know, and this is, I think, universally true of any writer, no matter what you write, you're a copywriter or a technical writer, you'd love to write the great American novel. A technical writer, you'd love to write the great American novel. So I said I've got, I've got time right now, I've got at least a few months. So I started working on it and six, seven months later I actually finished a novel, my first thriller, right on, and it's still sitting on my computer.

Speaker 1 18:22

Well, probably that one never saw the light of day.

Speaker 3 18:24

Right, what Stephen King calls a trunk novel, all right, but it got me hooked and I started writing some short stories.

Speaker 1 18:32

Don't you think, though, project Suicide is better, because you had gone through that first? Absolutely.

Speaker 3 18:38

Absolutely. I heard somebody a quote from a famous author, can't remember who, but it was says you don't start off writing great stuff. You start off writing crap you think is great stuff and over time you become better at it. That's why persistence is the number one quality that a fiction writer should have.

Speaker 1 18:59

I do write. I don't do technical writing, but I do fiction and nonfiction both, and it's a very different animal to me. So what skill set from technical writing did you actually bring into your?

Speaker 3 19:14

fiction Right. Well, first of all I want to thank the nuns in Catholic school for giving me a good grounding in basic grammar language structure grammar.

Speaker 1 19:25

You know A couple of rulers to the knuckle yeah.

Importance of Structure in Writing

Speaker 3 19:30

And, as Stephen King says, you learn a lot of it just by reading. You know if you read voraciously, you got to write a lot, you got to read a lot. You read a lot, you're going to pick up a lot of the skills as well doing that. Right, but one of the skills as well doing that. But one of the things in my technical writing is that you have to learn structure and flow.

Speaker 1 19:53

You know one of the reasons One idea flowing into the next, or when you say structure, like setting out the thesis of the paragraph, then supporting it, then concluding it within a paragraph, yeah, Working on a beginning, middle and end, you'll see a lot of people who will write beginning, beginning, beginning, beginning or middle, middle, middle.

Speaker 3 20:10

You've got to learn that it's got an arc to it.

Speaker 1 20:14

Yeah, I wondered if that's the Western storytelling arc was what you were hinting at. Anyway, we've had so many guests on and everybody's different, but usually those that don't at least structure to the degree of honoring the Western storytelling arc find themselves at a dead end road and the problem solving gets laborious and they, you know that's in my experience, those are the things you never finish Right. So structuring does have its value.

Speaker 3 20:38

The other thing is, uh, one of the things that my boss is really like. As I was doing epidemiologic research, I found over time I was doing less and less research and more and more writing Because I liked it and my bosses saw I was good at it and one of the things they liked is that it flowed. There was a logical progression from thing one to thing two, to thought one, to logical connection to this, and you need the same kind of thing in fiction writing, Of course.

Speaker 1 21:07

I'll be honest. You know I'm sure you're handed manuscripts to read, or you know I get handed things from time to time and if I wear the editor hat and I actually scrutinize it and edit as I go along, I can follow it. If I have to read a paragraph five times, you know what I mean and I could. Maybe I need more coffee, but it's usually the flow of ideas. That's just not there.

Speaker 3 21:30

And that's the thing is. You've got to be kind to your reader. Your reader doesn't want to have to work, right, right.

Speaker 1 21:35

Well, those are the things they'll put down If they have to work too hard, it will not sustain their interest.

Speaker 3 21:40

And that's one of the things we were talking about. With research. I do a course and a conference in Kentucky called Imaginarium on doing research in fiction writing, and one of the big things about it is it used to be very hard to had to seek out experts. You had the micro fish, remember the micro fish go to locations, and now with the internet right, you can do all of that Like in an afternoon no excuses, we all have fingers yeah.

Speaker 3 22:15

So the the, the bigger thing is what to leave out, because that's where it's for people to say this is interesting, I learned it. Look how smart I am. I'm going to give it all to you.

Speaker 1 22:26

That's what I wanted to ask. I mean specifically. That's why I went down this road. So I want to talk about research.

Speaker 1 22:32

But before we do that, I was thinking, you know, when I said how does your technical writing inform? And I was tempted to say your thrillers, but I just said your fiction, because you know I've written sci-fi here and there and I tend to write cyberpunk, apparently because the eighties are alive and well in me. So when I write science fiction it seems to take the form of cyberpunk, just because the few influences I was exposed to when I was younger. But I notice I want to write, do some world building first, like caricature, what's really already going on, right? If I wanted to talk about how the aliens are behind, you know, changing our DNA because they need new genetic stock and so the pharmaceutical companies and the government are in on it and that's what the pandemic was all about Like, now I'm giving my whole story away.

Speaker 1 23:19

But if I wanted to write about that, I kind of have to build the world first. So I could do a just the facts portrait right of the world I want to build. But how do you leave that out? And do you know what I mean and just make it organic and not do too much exposition where you're spoon feeding all that stuff. How did you find that balance out of three? Because you are so technically oriented and you have that background. How do you leave it out?

Speaker 3 23:43

Well, one of the things is and I always tell people you know you're going to leave out a whole lot more than you put in. Yeah, hopefully, but just vary the fact that you know it, of course. You need to write more powerfully about it. It's like I've done a lot of stage acting and you build a character with a lot more detail and backstory than is ever in the script Exactly. But the fact that you know it makes it a stronger performance.

Speaker 1 24:11

And maybe the silence between the lines is what matters. Like Stanley Kowalski, you know, Stanley, right.

Speaker 3 24:18

Right.

Speaker 1 24:18

Oh yeah, I always say like it's really not about him being boisterous or loud or macho or any of that, it's about everybody else tiptoeing around him. So less is more.

Speaker 3 24:29

He can speak hardly above a whisper, but it's how everyone around him is reacting to that makes sense, and so you know the fact that you, that you know that, um, and I also tell people you know if you, if you put in too much detail, so your goal is just to with research, is kind of like the spice in the soup. It's what hooks the reader and says this guy knows what he's talking about. I'm going to follow along and believe it. But you don't need much of that. If you put too much, they get bored. You've got to tell them.

Speaker 1 25:09

Well, that's what I think Like. It gives it authenticity. It lends it credenceence, right credence or credibility. But, like bridges of madison county, for example, everyone loved it because it glorified um infidelity. What's better than that, you know, glamorizing fidelity? But for whatever reason, middle america loved it. I watched and I thought I don't want to be lectured to about you daguerreotypes or different types of prints over the years, or even a Because that's not the point of your story.

Speaker 3 25:38

The technical material is not the point of your story. The point of your story is the characters, their struggles, their relationships, right, Well, I would go on to say it's an emotional.

Speaker 1 25:48

Usually a great story arc is an emotional arc, right, and it's not even about the superficial plot. So what engages us emotionally? It's not describing every little ornament on a piece of china like you see in a Merchant Ivory film.

Speaker 3 26:05

Well, one of my favorite authors of all time is Elmore Leonard. I always say that if you want to learn to write dialogue, read Elmore Leonard.

Speaker 1 26:15

Can you give me a title? I don't know who that is, oh sure he did a bunch of Westerns I got fingers.

Speaker 3 26:21

Well, he did Get Shorty, oh, okay. Yeah, a famous movie, rum Punch, was made into Jackie Brown. He did 52.

Speaker 1 26:32

Pickup. I'm so glad he didn't say Fifty Shades of Grey, he would have lost him.

Speaker 3 26:37

And he did a lot of westerns like Ombre and Valdez is Coming and things like that. The character of Raylan, Raylan Givens from Justified. That's all. Elmore Leonard.

Speaker 1 26:51

And what did you learn from him?

Speaker 3 26:52

I think you were about to say but he has a saying where he says I never describe anything if it doesn't either A advance the plot, the story, or B develop the character. And that may be going to an extreme. I don't say I would live by that.

Speaker 1 27:10

I think it's a balance. I mean, you know, I come from animation, so Lion King, pocahontas, hunchback, tarzan, so I'm a visual storyteller, right. But you know what? I got a typewriter at the age of seven. I've always identified as a writer as well. So I find it interesting, virginia, nowadays, like people will read the nameless prints and they'll go, oh my God, it was so vivid, your description's amazing. And I'll go no, no, no, no, don't see something that's not there. Because you know my background, I'm hopefully right. My voice is mature enough where I would never slow down the actual plot with laborious description. Uh, as much as I love Wuthering Heights, you want to slit your wrists and jump out the window, or both.

Speaker 3 27:50

Well, that's, that's that's the danger of too much research, too much description. You've got to be like a con man You're trying to sell somebody something and you're selling a lie. But you can't be too obvious. You have to just kind of slip them a few things that make them think, oh wow, this guy really knows what he's talking about.

Speaker 1 28:12

Yeah, Well, even in the way it impacts, like they say, you know, killing your I call it clubbing your baby seals killing your babies. If everything is novel and loaded, then nothing is novel and loaded. You got to pick and choose.

Speaker 3 28:25

Absolutely. And as they say, you know show don't tell Right right, you can do a lot more with some really well-placed action or dialogue than you can with a paragraph of exposition. Yep.

Speaker 1 28:42

Okay, well, I think I guess the other question I would have about research is because I just did again something I talked about in this morning's episode. I did something set in Minoan Bronze Age culture, so based on the canon of Greek myths, but actually predating it, bronze Age Minoan culture. So of course I did hordes of research. I was very careful not to do seven years of research, like a friend who never sat down and actually wrote the damn thing. And so my knowledge of the creative process tells me there are perfectionists who are afraid of the reception or falling short of their own expectations, and so they never quite get around to doing it, and the most convenient way of procrastinating is doing seven years of research. So in my creative process I've tried to find the balance of, like you know, diving in blindly and no fear and actually not having a styrofoam foundation and doing the due diligence.

Speaker 1 29:34

But for me, I guess my point was oh, I've forgotten all the research. Like I hit this terrifying moment where I feel like, okay, I've watched so much drone footage of the Greek islands and the Aegean and Milos and all my locations. I couldn't I didn't have the budget to fly there, but I, you know, watch so much drone footage that I feel like I'm there. But at some point I thought you know later, when I'm promoting this novel, if people ask about the two bronze swords that I referenced from Noxos, am I going to remember? Does it matter? In the end, you know, do you have to defend it? But also, where do you apply artistic license and when do you feel obligated to be bound to your research?

Speaker 3 30:16

Right, and I always tell people again this is my research course. Never forget you're writing fiction, you're making it up. If you can hook the reader with a few facts, nicely placed to draw them in, then you can make the rest believable BS. You can't obviously have crazy stuff that no one would believe, but you can weave a little bit of false science or in my case, with a gene for self-preservation. Nothing like that exists that we know of but.

Speaker 1 30:54

But we also thought the world was flat at one point. So right, what we know is the tip of an iceberg, and I do think you know there's entire books on how every movement in science was predated by a visionary, a prophet, right in the storytelling realm. So we know the tip of an iceberg and often artists, storytellers, creatives are the ones that predict it.

Speaker 3 31:16

Well, that's what science fiction is, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. And you keep speculating what if this happened, what if that happened, what if this could do this? And if you write that down in a plausible way, that's science fiction.

Speaker 1 31:29

Absolutely and it actually. You know, alex Huxley. I mean there's a million examples. We are predicting the future in a lot of cases. Yeah, not to put too much importance on it, but I think a great science and I'm more of like a Bradbury guy I like the humanity of it. It's not laser guns, it's just humanity. But I do think a really great science fiction novel doesn't just caricature the present but does predict the future. I mean there's a whole field called futurism, right? I?

Speaker 2 31:58

was going to say. I think it also, you know, even if you don't want to look at it as predicting the future, it definitely influences and inspires it. I mean, because how many of us right now would say that we'd have like little pocket computers that we can like FaceTime people with?

Speaker 3 32:14

And I remember you know the Jetsons.

Speaker 2 32:17

Yeah, I have my mom telling me that, because you know you're like oh, by the time you're an adult, you're going to have flying cars, which we don't have flying cars.

Speaker 1 32:23

Right. Where the hell are the flying cars?

Speaker 2 32:25

But we definitely do have they promised, the Jetsons promised that yes, yes, but we do have what looks like minecraft cars. If anybody knows what minecraft is, which is an online game for building blocks. You know from elon musk, because I don't know if you guys seen those trucks lately, but wait, what are they called?

Speaker 1 32:43

so there's a game called no I know minecraft, but what are elon musk's trucks?

Speaker 2 32:49

oh, you haven't seen them. It's like they're like trapezoid shapes.

Speaker 1 32:52

I, oh yes somebody actually juxtaposed a picture of a metal garbage bin with that thing.

Speaker 2 32:58

Yeah, yeah, that's my point. So I mean, who would have thought that you'd even see something relatively even like that?

Speaker 1 33:04

you know now well, my aunt is a boomer. I think she's probably your age, john. Did you give us your age earlier?

Speaker 3 33:12

um, I did not. I'm 68, 68.

Speaker 1 33:14

Oh, I'm sorry, that was our other guest. He did give his age, didn't he? Yeah, you're right around his age and you're over a decade older than me, so you're probably my aunt's age. She's 13 years older than me and the right age to be a hippie. She was actually an extra in easy writer just rattling off her resume, but definitely a hippie. And she was the one that said you know, not just that the Jetsons promised us flying cars, but pretty much all futurists said we're going to have so much leisure time. Do you know what I mean? That A, b, c and D and my aunt's like okay, wait a minute, why are we still indentured servants? We were promised all this leisure time. Does that resonate with you, john?

Speaker 3 33:54

Yeah, I mean my wife and I. One of our favorite places to go we've been there many times is Colonial Williamsburg, and they basically say that in many respects, the people then had more leisure time than we do now because, even though they had to do things by hand and stuff like that, they didn't have all the distractions of the electronics and all the other things, this needing to be at someone's beck and call 24 seven, as so often happens in in in companies and jobs. You know it was. They had time with their family, they had time at home, they had uh, uh, you know so well, time expands when you're in the moment.

Speaker 1 34:36

I mean not to get all spiritual here, but isn't that true? That time loses all meaning when you're really in the moment and even if you're just doing dishes, if you're really connected to that act and you're not manning your cell phone or waiting for a call, because, yeah, like you said, because you're bound to your job and you're on call, time actually seems to accommodate. But yeah, I could I lose you. It does seem to expand and, um, I don't know. I think something about the richness of life is lost when you become your job. Right, and the japanese and us, we have a monopoly on that well.

Speaker 3 35:09

Well, and that's another thing with research we talked about, you know all the electronics and everything from TVs to computers and stuff like that. You've seen a lot of things. The average person has seen and experienced a lot more than their actual experience. They may not have been to a police station, but they've seen enough of them where they think they know what they look like. And so that's another thing about research is you can use the reader's imagination what they already know or think they know. So you don't have to describe a business office unless there's some particular thing in there that's important to the story. You say you walked into the guy's office. People already in their head have a vision of what that office looks like. Yeah, you know. And if it's a government you may say it's a nice tool we have with the, you know.

Crafting Creative Descriptions and Exposition

Speaker 1 36:00

but I I guess that leads to the question, like in at first, I heard you know a sentiment that I've often said with, to do with archetypes and the reservoir of the collective unconscious that you, you know. Let's say, emily Bronte wrote Wuthering Heights without really having left the house. She was tapping into not just old, tired tropes or stereotypes or cliches or any of that. She was tapping into, arguably, these archetypes that are wired into our DNA, right, exactly. So I think we have access to all of that and that's why we can write something we've never experienced, or even write from a protagonist's point of view that has a different gender or gender identity, whatever. That's what makes us writers right and that's what makes us human. But I would, I would ask, because I've never thought of it the way you just described it If you're relying on the projections of the patron to build right that office you're not describing, how do you, or do you even care to sort of preserve your I mean, I guess protect yourself from cliches or tired tropes, problematic tropes, how about that?

Speaker 3 37:04

Well, again it's. You're not actually stating it, it's in the people's mind and it's a matter of. Is the story about this office, or is the story about what the people are doing in this office, who they are, how they're interacting, that kind of stuff?

Speaker 1 37:22

And that's the story. I relate to that too. Like you pick your battles. I've noticed again in writing a single sentence. If it's, if you use a colloquialism like and then she went on her merry way like it's not the end of the world. If you want him to skip on over that, if you want to draw attention to it, find a way, a poetic way of describing it that nobody else ever has. But if it's not meant, you know. If you don't want to draw attention to it as a novelty, it's actually OK to use figures of speech colloquialisms. Does that land with you a little bit?

Speaker 3 37:51

colloquialisms. Does that land with you a little bit?

Speaker 1 37:53

Um, it does to a point, but you want to you want to watch cliches, because if there's too many of them.

Speaker 3 38:03

Uh, I mean turns of phrase, I guess not really Right, you know, you can think of creative ways of doing something instead of saying that the other shoe dropped, he heard the, he heard the size 12 hit the floor, or something, Right, you know?

Speaker 1 38:14

Well, in thrillers, like you right, I do find myself, cause I like to pay homage to the old noir Hollywood thrillers, you know, and I've, I've had my, I've done a few and you know it's just short of like. Listen, sister, you can't go around shooting mosquitoes with elephant guns Like you. You know, when you lapse over into um farce, I guess, well, yeah, isn't some of it having fun with the depressing it depends, but it's a little, goes a long way, I think.

Speaker 3 38:43

But you know, if, if, like I said, it's the description of the office and you've heard people do this, I mean you've read people do this and they'll say you know, he was wearing a black suit, with a black suit, a narrow striped tie, this kind of shoes, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and all that. If there's something about his dress that's important, he's dressed like that, I would still simplify it, but it might make sense. But if it's a businessman, you might want to say he came in in a dark brook brothers suit, right, and you're out In power time, or something like that.

Speaker 1 39:19

Well, there's also great ways of dropping just one descriptive adjective in the middle of an action, if that makes sense. And I guess the sum is greater than the whole of its parts. Right, they accumulate over time and you get a fuller picture of this character.

Speaker 3 39:35

My favorite example of both not needing description and showing not telling is from a movie Wait Until Dark. Have you seen it? I don't think so.

Speaker 1 39:48

Tell me more.

Speaker 3 39:50

Well, it's kind of a 60s classic. It's Audrey Hepburn plays a blind woman who's being terrorized. Yeah, of course. Yeah, it's not, hitchcock isn't. At the beginning. You, you know that alan arkin's character is evil because you see him kill somebody, you know, and that kind of stuff. But then he introduces his two guys that he hires and you don't really know much about them. Are they evil? Are they kind of just uh, just doing a job? You don't really know much about them. Are they evil? Are they kind of just uh, just doing a job and don't really know what it's about? What is it? And so the Richard Crenna character asks him because they're, you know, they got their job, they have to do. He goes do we have to hurt anybody? And Alan Arkin says do you care? And Richard Crenna goes no, you learn more about his character than if you would read an entire paragraph describing how he is in my teaching I reference Avatar.

Speaker 1 40:47

Um, when you talk about yeah and I do think, by the way cinema, you definitely have to show it. Don't tell it, because it's a feeling medium and it does engage all the senses. But you got to keep those butts in the seat.

Speaker 3 40:59

All you've got is dialogue and stage direction.

Speaker 1 41:01

Yeah, and I think in writing it can be a crutch, but I do think it's actually a nice luxury to be able to share some internal dialogue. You don't want it to read like a diary, but you can go a little farther and then theater can be way more cerebral and philosophical. But assuming we're talking about literature here, I don't oh, I'm sorry, cinema I was the example I use in my teaching is like and tell me if either of you remember this, but Avatar, beautiful to look at, possibly breaks every rule of screenwriting. Right? You never use your character as a mouthpiece for exposition. Show it, don't say it. There's literally a scene in that where he, he looks at I forget a glass display on the desktop and says so you're saying that unobtainium, there is dot dot. Do you remember that scene?

Speaker 1 41:48

yeah, yeah and then ai is another one. It was 20 years ago now, but I remember. To get to the next, to get to act three, everything comes to a screeching halt and you literally get that cliche you know university lecture, hall lecture. That allows you to move on to the next chapter. It gives you the needed exposition to move on it. It was like oh, am I now in a new movie?

Speaker 3 42:12

Yeah, you see that a lot in sci-fi, like old Star Trek episodes and stuff, where they want to describe something to the audience and it's something that Mr Spock and Captain Kirk should already know, but the audience might not. So Mr Spock will say something like as you know, captain, I am a transcendental figure without resolution, you know? It's like that's kind of obvious what you're doing.

Speaker 1 42:40

Yes, it's embarrassing at some point, yes, but I think too, you know, some of these things have become tropes, right, and so in a temporal context, even Star Trek, we could let them off the hook a little bit, I think.

Speaker 2 42:53

Anyway, sorry, virginia, oh, I was just thinking. What's funny about that is we talk about how we shouldn't do that, but, as we know, art mirrors life. Life mirrors art. And the fact that in reality we do that ourselves. So my husband's favorite phrase to me when I do that is okay, Captain, obvious.

Speaker 1 43:15

Right? Well, sometimes you do it for the newcomer's benefit, right? Let's say there's an old running joke between you and your husband. You're going to retell it to a stranger as if for the first time, right?

Speaker 2 43:27

No, I'm like saying he's walking out the door and and he's stressed to go out on a hike, and I'm like, oh, are you hiking? And he just goes. I don't know, captain, obvious, am I? So I so sometimes when I see that, even though I know it is like the kind of like we just want to hit your head when you're watching a movie or TV show they do it at the same time I'm thinking, but we actually really do do that in real life.

Speaker 1 43:51

Well, some people are narrators too, like my sister. She's been on the show. Renee will tell you she won't mind me saying this she's always been a narrator and it's like sometimes it is saying the obvious. I think I think this is not dirty laundry. She even said like the first time her and her partner they've been married for 35 years First time they did it she was like narrating 35 years. First time they did it she was like narrating. It kind of takes the fun out of things, right, you don't explain humor and you don't talk about who's on third base or whatever kills the moment and getting back to writing.

Speaker 3 44:23

It's that's the thing about research and description. They're related but they're not the same. But is leave out the unnecessary, leave in only the interesting. It's like I took acting classes when I, many years ago, and a very good instructor who had trained with Uta Hagen in New York, so she was pretty good, and she said you know, we're doing improv. For example, you can do the most realistic response or action in the world, but if it's boring it's no good because you've got to maintain interest. And so lengthy description, lengthy technical description or lengthy description of anything that's not necessary doesn't advance that story, doesn't advance the character's story, you know. It doesn't advance the character Right or develop them.

Speaker 1 45:27

It doesn't further develop them.

Speaker 3 45:29

I don't care if it's great description or whatever. Cut it, it just slows the story down and people start flipping pages. Right, you don't want that.

Speaker 1 45:37

Well, I will add to that, though, by saying, yes, I'm a huge fan of everything propelling the story further, whether it's the character arc or the general story arc. Right, I will say back again I was raised on Disney. I was 20 when I started the job and I wasn't a big fan before I started the job. But when you look back at so, there's trends that come and go.

Speaker 1 45:58

You look back at Pinocchio, and not every song was literally from a story beat. Nowadays, if you're going to make a song out of it, like we used to joke, oh okay. If she's going to sit on a box and talk about her wants and needs, that's called the want song, right. And so Ariel sits on, I guess, that treasure chest and talks about part of their world. And then in Beauty and the Beast, belle sits on a fountain and says she wants to be out there in the great wide open. It became such a formula. We called it the want song. You look back to pinocchio and you know what, for no good reason at all, those toys are going to come alive and capture the imaginations of children and just transport us, and it's a more non-linear sort of like art film experience.

Speaker 1 46:43

They got back to that with what was the one set in new orleans, uh, with the frog princess and the frog yeah yeah, they really got back to that non-linear, like we're going to go off on a tangent now and you're coming along for the ride and it somehow works. Of course it's related thematically, but it is more experimental, if you want to call it that and that's a difference, though, between a visual medium and writing.

Speaker 3 47:10

You can kind of do that, whereas in writing, if you tried to show all of those things or describe what was going on, it would be incredibly difficult to follow.

Speaker 1 47:24

Yes, and I'm with you 100%. I'm just adding too that maybe I guess in my own writing I'm not out to cater to cultural ADD and so I like to suspend a moment, not through flowery writing or description, but I like to slow the pace and challenge people to step into the moment. If that makes sense, so I do it. I agree with you, but it's kind of for different reasons. Everything should propel the plot and hopefully round out the character, but not because I'm worried about keeping their attention.

Speaker 3 47:54

Right. I'm certainly a believer that you have to have a certain amount of internal dialogue, because that's how the characters reveal themselves, as well as through their actions, their actions, their actions and their auditory dialogue, but also the internal dialogue. It builds up that tension within the individual.

Speaker 1 48:17

But isn't it more powerful if the reader, if it's interactive, if the reader comes to conclusions on their own rather than being spoon fed, the conclusion right, it's more interactive by definition. And that goes for visual communication and right literature. Yeah, I don't like reading internal dialogue if it reads like a diary and it's didactic or moralistic in some way. You know.

Speaker 2 48:43

I want to say it provides kind of like a rich foundation. You know, when we're able to, as someone you know, be it if it's on screen or you know between the pages of you know covers of a book, um, where we can connect with that emotional and psychological journey of character. You know, and and I think that's where that balance has to come into play, because I think touches into our empathy aspect of humanity to go on those journeys and I think you lose readers, or you know anybody, the audience, when you know you go too much onto a tangent and give them more than they need or like they they're being talked down to or you know along those lines.

Speaker 3 49:31

So I think that's, that's always been, I think the yeah, it comes down to what's the point of your, of your story. Uh, you know, your story's supposed to be leading somewhere and taking these people and putting them through an adventure, throwing obstacles in their way, putting climactic moments that they have to overcome, and it should always there shouldn't be so many sidebars that you lose that flow.

Crafting Thriller Fiction

Speaker 1 50:02

Some people actually may not know Everybody's different right. Some people are like I just want to motor through it, and I always use this example of like pose to pose animation instead of just, um, yeah, pose to pose, or just straightforward they call it. To me, the inspiration, that lightning strike of inspiration that makes me want to flesh out a story or die, is actually the thing I want to impart. It becomes the thematic content, right? So the way the conflict resolves results in that thematic content. It's all interconnected. I think some people start stories with the best intentions, right. Maybe they want to be part of a tradition, maybe it's writing a solace for them. But sometimes, if they don't have much to say, they're just relying on old, tired tropes and actually they've never even identified the thematic content. Does that make sense? So if you have a lighthouse and you know where you're headed, everything tends to fall into place.

Speaker 3 50:59

And it's also a matter of whether you're doing a short story, which is kind of a microcosm. It's got. It's got beginning, middle and end and you better have a pretty good idea what those are going to be, versus if you're doing a novel, or especially a thriller novel. I'm one of those types of writers, along with people like Stephen King, which I'll not say I'll write as good as Stephen King, but what they call right by the seat of your pants. You follow along and you have an idea in the general direction you're going. But there are surprises and if there's a problem for you, then it's really going to be a surprise for the audience.

Speaker 1 51:37

I think it's a balance, you know. I mean Madeline Lingle will tell you. Speaking of research, like Madeline Lingle will say, I did zero research for a wind in the door or you know any of those, and yet she got all the cell biology 100 percent correct on intuition. So she said once in an interview well, that character's had to die. I didn't see it coming, but it happened.

Speaker 3 51:59

I've certainly done that, where a character dies and you don't really know what's going to happen, or the character does something or takes a direction you do not know they were going to do before you sat down that afternoon or that morning and that's the beauty of our intuition.

Speaker 1 52:16

And, uh, our intuition is in alignment with what? Um? Something greater right, something right well, there was, there was.

Speaker 3 52:27

There was actually more of that in project suicide than there was in checkout time. There was a actually more of that in Project Suicide than there was in Checkout Time. There was a certain amount of that. But in Checkout Time I kind of had a decent idea of the general direction I was going and I won't say I outlined it beforehand. But there weren't as many surprises for me, even though I think there were surprises for the reader.

Speaker 1 52:48

Well, that takes me back to your process, if you don't mind. That was one of my initial questions. So you had. It sounds like the inspiration wasn't a distinct lightning strike, but it was things that were sort of, you know, swimming around, maybe in your subconscious, and then the world caught up right and you saw the relevance of it. Was it an initial just, was it like a thumbnail? And what came out of you as the initial expression of your inspiration? And then how did you execute it?

Speaker 3 53:18

I'll actually I'm going to switch over to checkout time, uh, because that is actually a better answer for your question, because in checkout time there was a moment of inspiration that was and it wasn't right before I started writing the book. It was probably about 10 years before that, when I was on a business trip and I sat in a hotel and I looked up at the ceiling. I was at the I think it was the fourth or fifth floor, the top floor of the hotel and there was a trap door and it was obviously designed to. You know, you just stick something in there, turn it open like a screwdriver and you can get up there and fix the wiring or whatever. Um, and I said, wow, you could put something in there. What would you put in there? And this starts the what if? Wheel going. You could put computer disks in there and maybe then you have an espionage story where somebody is, you know, stashed these there before the FBI caught them or whatever. You could have money fall out of there, big stacks of money, and then maybe you have a heist or mob thing where they want to get their money back. I thought and this is how my brain works I thought a bomb would be a great way to put up there.

Speaker 3 54:43

I'm kind of a pyro. I grew up anything that burned or exploded. I liked it. Kind of a pyro, I grew up anything that burned or exploded, I liked it so. But I said, okay, why would you put a bomb up in there? You know, you could just be a nut, you could just be somebody who wants to kill people, whatever. But I had seen a movie back in the seventies which I'm sure neither of you have seen, called Roller Coaster.

Speaker 1 55:10

Of course I did. I saw that, dude. It was a double feature with skateboard. Okay, the Magnolia Theater in Burbank, which no longer exists. I saw it at a double feature.

Speaker 3 55:23

About an extortion bomber trying to get you from amusement park owners. And I said, okay, this would be a great place to use that. But instead of amusement park owners, we have hotel chains, and he wants money from hotel chains or he's going to start blowing up and burning their hotels. And I thought, okay, that's fine, but could you actually bring a bomb into a hotel? And I thought for a minute. I went well, yeah, nobody, nobody checks your baggage. They don't go through metal detectors. It's not like the TSA you could. You could bring in a backpack nuke and all they would ask you is do you want one key card or two? So I said, great, now we've got. We've got motive, means and opportunity. And it went on for a day.

Speaker 1 56:15

Sorry to interrupt you, but I've seen a lot of like lobby camera footage of bodies going in and out of hotels and luggage. Have you seen those?

Speaker 3 56:24

No.

Speaker 1 56:25

Okay, well, trust, google it. Certain cases it's like so obvious and it's on camera. And yeah, I guess the bellhops are just busy or something, I don't know.

Speaker 3 56:35

They've got the cameras. It's a matter of and I kind of show in this they look at camera footage and things like that, but it's the matter of they don't check your bags. They don't. You can bring explosives. You could bring a whole suitcase full of C4.

Speaker 1 56:51

You're giving me a lot of ideas here.

Speaker 3 56:54

And that was part of the fun of it for me, being a pyro is I got to research how you make napalm at home, how you make plastic explosive, how do you make thermite.

Speaker 1 57:05

You know the Anarchist's Cookbook. Have you ever seen that book? I saw it years ago, back in the 70s when it came out.

Speaker 3 57:14

Yeah, I wonder if that's still available.

Speaker 2 57:14

It is, it's still available, and all I'm thinking the whole time as you're talking, john, at some point heaven forbid you ever have any law enforcement knock on your door and ask just like, take your computer and do like a forensic search nice knowing you man.

Speaker 1 57:26

Well, I think, all at this point, we're all on a government watch list. Let's just be clear.

Speaker 3 57:30

Well, that's that's what I thought I was, and the FBI is going to be contacting me because of my search search fee.

Speaker 1 57:36

Right, right, my Google searches, but I have to tell a quick story. I worked on you like, uh, interactive video games. You know, uh, silent Hill, right? Yeah, um, I worked on it for 13 weeks. I did all the characters and it was timed with the release of the movie, but this was just the video game, um, so, yeah, I Googled. I'm not proud of it, but circus freaks, uh, birth defects, the lid of my babies, you name it. And then it was, the gig ended and I called up my brother and this is back. You know you could clean your cache, but there was no way to get. And your browser history, but it's in the hard drive. So I called up my brother because this was years ago and I had no idea. I was like, dude, how do I wipe this out? This could, I could be institutionalized.

Speaker 3 58:24

It was all research, truly, but yeah, yeah, so that's basically where the genesis of checkout time came from.

Speaker 1 58:34

And did you sit down and sort of just write a rough draft or what came out of you initially?

Speaker 3 58:39

Yeah, that's what I did. I kind of had in my head I had like several distinct types of bombings in mind. I had a main character in mind a government researcher for, for NIOSH, which is, if you don't know, it's National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. Uh, I was. I uh worked for EPA and for New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, not in, uh, accident investigation or commercial fires or anything like my character, thomas Tomasinski in Checkout Time does. He basically was an expert on commercial fires and I knew I wanted a strong female character and I made her an FBI agent and she's almost a co-lead, she's almost a co-protagonist and they are basically in the same hotel where the first bombing takes place and so he becomes involved because she's there on the scene and she needs immediate expertise in this idea of hotel fires and bombings and stuff like that so the inspiration was literally just an image.

Speaker 1 59:52

And then the what if, the what if.

Speaker 3 59:54

It was an image. Then the what ifs gave me several stepping stones and I knew my characters, to start with my main characters, and I introduced others in there as well. That were surprises to me and to, hopefully, to the reader. Um, and I knew my villain was going to be this, uh, very intelligent, very good at makeup and changing his appearance, and I gave him the pseudonym of Conrad Hilton.

Speaker 1 1:00:24

Uh, as in the hotel chain, right as in the hotel, and so you know and chain, and so you know, and this is Did. Paris make a cameo no.

Speaker 3 1:00:34

Well, somebody asked me. They said aren't you worried about you know, the hotel being upset and suing you? I went the name Conrad Hilton is in the kind of public domain. It's like you said, cary Grant, cary Grant can't come and get you, he's a public figure. Conrad Hilton is a public figure, was a public figure.

Speaker 1 1:00:52

So I don't want to beat a dead horse but in terms of your process because we have talked about you know everybody's different. Truly, everybody's creative process is different. I like everything you've said that you share about process in your teaching and I agree with all of it. But I do find that you know everyone's a little different and I try to. I do know that people hit a wall if they don't understand the creative process and, you know, have writer's block or blank page syndrome, whatever you want to call it, and a lot of the fear goes away when you take the time to understand the creative process.

Speaker 1 1:01:24

So I am a big fan of thumbnail-ing, doing three by5 cards, structuring to a degree, but, like you said, it depends on the format. A short story either, like you said, can have a beginning, middle and an end, and it's kind of like a mise en scene. If you can tell a story with Three shots, you're in great shape. So a really powerful micro fiction Can do. You know what I mean Be very calculated about what you're editing in and editing out. But I also think short stories can be much more nonlinear and sort of more experimental. But for me, especially with novels, I do for sure want to know what I have to say and that's my thematic content. I know that the resolution of the conflict is going to result in that thematic content, so I do lay out not just sort of the inciting incident, the climax, but literally the turning points. I do three by five cards. Here's where this person has a change of heart.

Speaker 3 1:02:18

That's called a turning point. As you say, everybody's different. There's a whole other school and I do see it in my pants but there's a whole other school where you plot everything out. You know there's pantsers and plotters, and there's nothing wrong with that If that's what works for somebody, and that is very common, very popular in things like mysteries, because mysteries there's discrete clues that have to be dropped, there's discrete moments that have to be foreshadowed, and so outlining is much more appropriate for something like that than it is for something like a thriller where you're on a roller coaster ride and there's surprises around every corner.

Speaker 1 1:02:58

But we were talking sorry to interrupt you. We were talking earlier about maybe these happy accidents that our subconscious or intuition can create for us. And I've had, you know, oh, a butterfly lands. Don't know what it means, but I'm going to trust it and bring it back later and maybe I'll even, you know, place it earlier to foreshadow and without analyzing it, I just trust it and then that can become the strongest metaphor in the piece. So, but I know that those things create themselves. When I'm not problem solving in the moment and I'm free enough to just write and kind of get warmed up and fluid about my process, then I'm sort of drawing directly on my intuition. Does that make sense? So having a structure actually allows me to be more fluid because I'm not problem solving in the moment.

Speaker 3 1:03:41

Many people, who are even plotters, will tell you oh, I outlined it, but then I end up changing a lot of things as I go, you know, and I just need to. I need the structure to get me started, you know, and as I go I change things. I think that's common too. There's a whole spectrum of how people do it, and I always tell people like I'm in a lot of writers groups and people will say I'm trying to do this, should I do that? Should I do that? I go whatever works for you, that I go whatever works for you. I'm friends with a author, john Gilstrap, who's written quite a few thrillers and stuff like that, and he's fond of saying there are no rules. And to a certain extent that's true. I mean, you can't just completely break what people are expecting to see, whether that's with tropes or whatever but by and large there are no rules and it's the way it works for you. That is.

Speaker 1 1:04:38

Virginia, virginia will attest literally every week. We end up saying, well, can't define beauty, can't define art. There's no good, bad, right or wrong in the creative process, just cause and effect. So there are so many books about craft right, but most of them there's this sort of unspoken presumption that the goal is A, b, c or D right, mainstream success, critical reception being a bestseller. But literary value and artistic integrity are pretty low on the list in terms of books on technique, you know. So I just think there's all kinds of outcomes. Therefore, there's all kinds of approaches. But you know, for me, because I am, I guess, a little bit more into the elitist sort of artistry, end of it, blah, blah, blah it's good for me to read things like the first 40 pages. You know, there's things that'll tell you how to get past a reader to the actual literary editor and what will hold their attention and what will not, and that's helpful for me.

Speaker 3 1:05:40

Well, there's the old saying that story trumps writing. Life is story. Right, if you want to sell it, it can be the most beautiful writing in the world, but if it's not something that catches the imagination of the public, of an editor, of a publisher, of an agent, uh, the crappy writing is going to be. It's going to be a perfect example of that, and I know some people are not going to like this, but I believe it and I've heard enough people you know professional writers say it is the Twilight books.

Speaker 1 1:06:20

Now you're getting controversial here.

Speaker 3 1:06:22

They captured something in the imagination of young girls, but the writing was typically crappy. Oh my God.

Speaker 2 1:06:31

No, it was middle-aged house.

Speaker 2 1:06:33

I'll be mean, it was middle-aged housewives. I'm a huge Stephen King fan too, and and I actually and it's funny because I know Stephen King talks about both twilight and Harry Potter love Terry Potter hated twilight. Basically for the same, for the things you said, I have read the harry potter and and I'm a diehard stephen king fan so, and I share his birthday with him, so maybe one day I'll get lucky, we'll meet at a coffee shop. But, um, what's interesting is I've gone back and I've read harry potter each book seven times, because there's seven books, so I've always reread the books and I read it how many times, whichever book number come out. When it happened and even though the world building of jk rowling is amazing I look at it now with my writing experience going she is so freaking green behind the ears and she's on this pistol because she has, you know, sold a lot of books.

Speaker 2 1:07:29

She's a a New York times bestselling author. But I'm like you hear the crap. I'm not. I'm not even talking to political stuff. I'm saying when she's talking about writing the stuff that comes out of her mouth, sometimes I'm going please stop talking. You still don't know what you're talking about, please stop, just stop, right now.

Speaker 1 1:07:45

I'm so glad you said it Go ahead.

Speaker 3 1:07:51

The now I'm so glad you said it, go ahead. The first Twilight book. I thought I would sit down and see what the buzz was about. So I started reading it and I gave it 200 pages and I said to myself and I said this to my wife at the time I said how does she manage to make vampires boring? Because one of my rules is and again this comes from my acting days too never be boring, you know. Don't, don't stress your reader, don't make them work hard to do your, to read you, and never be boring. Those are too big for me.

Speaker 1 1:08:19

Well, but it wasn't boring in the eye of the beholder.

Speaker 3 1:08:22

I'm just going to play the devil's advocate, um, I mean to a certain extent maybe, but you know, as we talked about, you know, excessive description, that's not necessary. Excessive exposition or prose, that is literally wonderful, that trips off your tongue and it's one of the darlings you just love. But if the reader's flipping pages, I'll give you a good example. But if the reader's flipping pages, I'll give you a good example. My dad, when he was, he passed away about 20 years ago, but when he was working he worked as a machinist and he sat there and the machine did most of it. He had to just change it once in a while. So he had a lot of time to read.

Speaker 3 1:09:03

He was an avid reader, so he used to love to read. And he used to love to read James Michener and, as you know, most of Michener's books are these huge tones that are just loaded with description. And I said to him, dad, what about all the technical material about tectonic plates moving? And he goes, I just skipped that. So maybe if you're James Michener you can get away and people will say I'll still read you even though I have to skip a lot of what you say. But for most of us no. If it becomes difficult to read, you know you read for pleasure when you read fiction, and if it becomes tiresome or difficult to read, you're not going to read that person.

Speaker 2 1:09:47

So that's kind of it's like, in acting, never be boring person. So that's kind of it's. It's like in acting, never be boring. Well, here's, here's something that you know, just kind of talking about, so, and I'm gonna, of course, maybe steven king's never gonna want to ever meet with me in a coffee shop, this, but since I'm going to use my favorite author, just because I've always aligned with him in many ways when it came to writing, um, and his character development on his part.

Speaker 2 1:10:08

Yeah, well, wonderful yeah what I've let, what I love about stephen king, which, um, because I know everybody's like, oh, he's a grandfather of horror, but it's really because he talks about this, you know the psychology, the behavioralism of the, of the human condition, um, you know civilization versus natural man, which is what I always loved about Stephen King. But with that said so, we know he is actually in his book Under the Dome he actually makes a negative comment toward the Twilight series. In that series and I know he loves Harry Potter, but he loves the Game of Thrones series and so I was like, oh, if he read this when he broke his leg and was healing, and you know, and I've seen the interviews with him and martin, I picked that series up you want to talk about a series where you get about after book three and you're going who was editing this book? Because you could, like take pages and just throw them out of the game of thrones yeah, game of thrones, yes, where you can.

Speaker 2 1:11:06

That's exactly what I thought when I was reading it. I read the first two books.

Speaker 3 1:11:11

I was like, yeah, it's bad. And I was going to read the third book and I said, well, this is probably where they wraps it up. And somebody said, no, he just keeps writing. And I went, oh well, forget that.

Craft vs Authenticity in Writing

Speaker 2 1:11:20

Yeah, yeah, and I was like maybe Steven hit his head a little hard too when he broke, is like, but anyways, um, sorry, that's my but what. Where I'm going with this is is because we actually have harry potter and twilight fans in my family and I actually know the author, who is an award winning and um best-selling author, who taught stephanie meyer yes, I'm saying her name um about writing. She actually took um his, which is david wolverton. Um, and well, he's, he's David Wolter and David Farland. Those are his two names. He's passed um, but anyways, he taught her writing because she's a Utah author.

Speaker 2 1:11:57

So I actually know this whole writing writers group quite well because I'm in the inner circle with them, and the one thing that I have learned being around many of them is what's relatable to the reader, um, and I think that's what's so important. So, like I know, I'm a Harry Potter fan, can't stand Twilight, even though Stephanie's a really wonderful person, um, but my kids love Twilight and they don't like Harry Potter and I think for them it was was relatable because, you know, when they read them they were teenage girls and they can understand the whole. You know, heartthrob, I love this guy. Why wouldn't you give him time to think?

Speaker 3 1:12:39

That was his key audience and, like I said, she's laughing all the way to the bank. She doesn't need me to write like her writing. You know it's that case of that story, trump's writing. She tapped into something in her stories that even if you know you think the writing is repetitive and overly descriptive and all that stuff, it doesn't matter because the story was there Right and see for me for the Harry Potter series, which was the same reason why Stephen King loved it.

Speaker 2 1:13:06

It was just and there was for me for the Harry Potter series, which was the same reason why Stephen King loved it. It was just and there was. I mean, there was a lot of overriding when it came to the world building, but it was just so imaginative that I could see myself walking through the halls of Hogwarts and I love that. I felt transported visually by that descriptive writing.

Speaker 3 1:13:24

So but yeah, and that's something I think a wonderful thing about stephen king is he has both the story ideas very creative ideas and the writing to back it up yeah um you know meaning the technique to that yeah, and and I, I always say, my big three authors are elmore leonard he taught me dialogue uh stephen king taught me characters and uh ernest Hemingway taught me how to cut a lot of crap out.

Speaker 1 1:13:54

I call that economy. Yeah, ray Bradbury taught me economy. Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:13:58

Very, very similar.

Speaker 1 1:13:59

I want to start to bring this to a close. I like I love everything we're talking about, but I think we're. Some things are recurring, and what I'm hearing is this standoff between craft or technique and why we write in the first place.

Speaker 3 1:14:15

It's. We talk about story. You could say that's like why you're writing.

Speaker 1 1:14:19

Sometimes I don't preach as much as I would like to, so I just want to gently offer after all this discussion about technique or craft and what we could do or should do. Or you know what other writers have said about great writing. Some of it's elitist, some of it's romantic, some of it's very pragmatic, but there's always a presumption toward the goal of what? Toward? The goal of hooking your reader so that you can be right, a JK Rowling's, or because you want to transform humanity and contribute to the collective evolution of humanity. So do you know what I mean? There's all kinds. There is no good, bad, right or wrong. There's only cause and effect. So every time we say here's great writing, it's like toward what outcome?

Speaker 3 1:15:08

So I just want to throw that out there, because that is what our podcast is all about is.

Speaker 1 1:15:13

It's about the intention. There is no good, bad, right or wrong in the creative process or in what kind of stories we choose to tell. There's just outcome. So what I hear in all of this is I agree with you, story trumps writing. Every step of the way, a technique can make for great alliteration, great word juxtaposition, great rhythm, all these other wonderful things. But yes, if you have nothing to say in the world and you don't follow the point is inspiration, then you are going to rely on old, tired tropes, you're going to perpetuate them and you may not be contributing toward our evolution.

Speaker 3 1:15:53

And that's part of the thing where I'm a big believer that you can't write for the public or for the audience, especially if you're chasing trends. You have to write what you want to write, Otherwise it's going to come out as cardboard cut out.

Speaker 1 1:16:12

Well, that's what came up. For me too is like there's a lot of talk about finding one's voice as a writer. Well, how do you find your voice? Yes, you do a lot of reading, like you hinted at right. But somebody like Stanley Kubrick will say but none of that matters, it's all theoretical till you put pen to paper will say, but none of that matters, it's all theoretical till you put pen to paper and, like, in the same way, you wrote a full novel before you arrived at a voice that somehow suited you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 1:16:39

Your premier novel. It is about putting pen to paper and, in a way, you refine your own technique. But really what you're refining is what you have to say in the world, your voice, right, your likes, your dislikes, your preferences, your aesthetic preferences and anyway. So I think it's about being authentic, like you're hinting at right, saying what you uniquely have to say in the world, and you will find your readership, or you will find your audience or not. Maybe it's only meant to move one person on an island right In the Atlantic, I don't know.

Speaker 3 1:17:06

And, as you said, it also depends on what your goal is. If you want to touch people emotionally, maybe you're going to write something more like Bridges of Madison County. If you want to entertain people with a roller coaster ride, you know you're going to write a thriller or something like that. It depends on what your intention is.

Speaker 1 1:17:24

Yeah, yeah, I guess my, my resentment or sort of a lot of the talking heads was renewed yesterday. So just a quick story before I wrote this. But I mean, the thing that became the book, that became the podcast, was I was asked mid pandemic to do a talk on story or you know, a global audience, but it was all on zoom and I begrudgingly agreed but I said okay, but only if I can. There's enough books out there about technique and there is this presumption, right, that the goal is to write a bestseller or make Bank of the Box office. That's the unspoken presumption and I said I'm glad to talk about it. But I will not talk about technique or craft or the nuts and bolts of technique.

Speaker 1 1:18:08

I want to talk about why we tell stories in the first place, and that's how this all began, you know. So I do think, um, yeah, everybody lands somewhere, you know differently, on the elitist scale of what has, uh, merit. But I I just think, if we see it as cause and effect and then we get to choose what kind of stories we wish to put out into the world and maybe view it as cause and effect, and then we get to choose what kind of stories we wish to put out into the world and maybe view it as our contribution or our calling. The world would just probably be a better place. That's all, nothing big. Amen, I don't know, are you with me? If we all found what we uniquely have to say in the world, instead of repeating old, tired tropes, how could that not usher in our evolution?

Speaker 3 1:18:49

Well, you also have to consider that what we might think of as a trope say Romeo and Juliet.

Speaker 1 1:18:56

Forbidden love. Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:18:57

That's been done a zillion ways and they're all a little bit drifted. And so people have said you know, there's really only like 10 ideas out there and it's how you work them and make them interesting and new and not boring.

Speaker 1 1:19:11

Exactly Relevant for contemporary audiences. Yeah, yeah, and that's what I think we've been throwing this around too is like the universality, something relatable about the human condition there, and I like and you hinted at this too we get to have all those precedents that provide resonance. When I was 11, I wrote a story and a friend said, oh well, and I happen to love Bradbury. But they said, oh, bradbury's already done that. And even at 11, I said, well, but I haven't yet Right.

Speaker 1 1:19:44

Anyway, well, now that we're sort of I had to get on a soapbox and remind everybody what the spirit of the podcast is. Maybe I could ask you a general question, john, that I've been wanting to ask. I mean, I love that we indulge the craft of writing we have with a few other indie authors, but not too many. So I think this is great because people can kind of, I think, be inspired to analyze their own process and then hear about our processes and, uh, you know, maybe it'll help them in their growth. But more than that, since I have kind of tied it back into the spirit of the podcast, just indulge me If, if I asked you a really general question, a, you identify as a storyteller. Is that fair to say?

Speaker 3 1:20:22

Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 1:20:23

And you've chosen the craft of writing, seemingly at the moment yes, okay.

Speaker 3 1:20:30

So I'm gonna ask you I kind of morphed over from acting, which I did, right which I meant to pursue.

Speaker 1 1:20:36

That too, I think that's the smartest thing a writer can do. I'm a film, live action film director, and the smartest thing a director can do is take an act of this. Absolutely, you know, because you learn everything we talked about, like less is more, what? What you don't express or emote is actually where the texture lies and the ambience anyway. So the two-parter is this um, what makes you a writer? You know what. What about your essence makes you a writer? Because that is a thread that's existed throughout. And then, secondly, what do you think the role of storing in culture is?

Speaker 3 1:21:16

I'm a writer, I'm more like. There's a line from Chariots of Fire where she says do you love running? He says I'm more of an addict, and I'm kind of that way too. If I don't write for a while, there's something in me that wants to come out, and if I don't do it for a while, I get restless. So it's for me, it's it's it's. I mean, part of it is I know I can do it. I know that I can write entertaining things for people that they might like, and so I feel like I should do it. So that's part of it.

Speaker 1 1:21:55

What was the second part of the question? Well, how do you think story serves culture, or what role does it play in culture?

Speaker 3 1:22:02

They both reflect culture and they can shape culture.

Speaker 1 1:22:07

Right and Virginia kind of hinted at that earlier right.

Speaker 3 1:22:10

I mean, look at all of the books that had been written about where the evil person is some type of corporate entity, some type of corporate person. I've worked in corporations and there are a lot of boring people and there are a lot of snobby people and there are a lot of just unpleasant people, but I wouldn't describe any of them as evil. But yet that's actually shaped perception of the culture. We have people who are actually thinking that inflation might be caused by corporate greed. Now, that's not even possible, but they have seen it enough times that they begin to believe it. So in that respect I think it actually shapes the culture. And in other ways it reflects the culture. It reflects, for example, Project Suicide. It reflects our preoccupation with side effects and suicide and dementia and not trusting the government and all those things. So I think it goes both ways.

Artists and Storytellers

Speaker 1 1:23:18

Beautiful, I love it. Yeah, I mean, ayn Rand would say it's a mirror to society, right, but it is the way we evolve. Even in 1985, I was part of a speech competition Optimist Club oratorical contest and the theme was television master or servant. So yeah, I agree in terms of policy, like actually the examples you just gave, we carry around unexamined perceptions of you name the institution all day, every day, and maybe a new story that reframes those institutions makes us rethink our presumptions about whether there's somebody with a twisty mustache sitting right in a swiveling chair petting a cat at the top of the pharmaceutical chain right, you get, but, but you have to be because of public perception.

Speaker 3 1:24:07

As a writer, you have to be careful about how you attack those perceptions. Do it very carefully or you will be seen as well. He doesn't know what he's talking about. Everybody knows that. There's a great old line from man of Shot Liberty Valance when the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

Speaker 1 1:24:31

Wow, that's interesting.

Speaker 3 1:24:32

Yeah, I mean you could become a pariah by, or just a quack, right, right, and you saw a lot of that during the pandemic, where people were stating basic I've been trained in public health, basic public health premises. I've been trained in public health, basic public health premises. And they were being attacked as you're not following the science. Yes, because there was a whole other agenda, at least in some parts of society, that was feeding a different storyline and people didn't know. People don't know a lot about a lot of things, but one of the things people don't know is medicine.

Speaker 1 1:25:13

Here's one way of looking at it, though If you go against the status quo or I don't know if there's an American phrase but the march right If you don't fall in line and Well, largely that's what artists and storytellers are here to do is ruffle feathers and write, to be provocateurs and therefore shift our paradigms. But how do you do that in the cunning way that you're hinting at? Well, the way I put it, we actually change minds by touching hearts. So if you can engage people, like we were saying, not just with the universality or the relatable characters, but actually by telling a story that moves them emotionally, they're more likely to swallow that jagged pill right your stories about people, their relationships, how they're overcoming difficulties, whatever, and never forget that that's what your story is about.

Speaker 3 1:25:57

It's not about the technical, it's not about a soapbox. It's always about the characters and their struggles. Beautiful, yeah, that's what makes us all human.

Speaker 1 1:26:09

We all have them. We all have the same struggles. So, on that note, any final anything else you would want to share with listeners?

Speaker 3 1:26:17

I just hope everybody checks out Project Suicide and Checkout Time. You can find them on Amazon, Barnes, Noble, various places. Easiest way to get there wwwprojectsuicidenovelcom.

Speaker 1 1:26:34

Is that the link that we're going to publish with your episode?

Speaker 3 1:26:39

Also I've got some. There's some look for things like Larceny and Last Chances, which is a very good anthology which will be coming out in a couple of weeks, where I have a short story in um Max Blood's Mausoleum. I have a short story in that came out late, late last year, early this year. Uh, one or two others.

Speaker 1 1:26:59

And what are you working on now? Are you writing at the moment?

Speaker 3 1:27:02

Um, I'm always writing. Um. I just finished a short story a couple of drafts of it a week or two ago and I have a work in progress. Right now I'm about 10,000 words into. I have several works in progress that if I run up into a roadblock on one, I switch to the other one. Yeah, I love a change of scenery, right, not a lot of people do that, or some people don't agree to that, but that would work for me.

Speaker 1 1:27:33

Yeah, I think I used to be sorry, Um, I was. I'd pull all nighters just to get something done and out of my system, and now I'm I think art center taught me that to juggle projects, Uh, but it's actually been wonderful to have a change of scenery now and then and then come back with fresh eyes later, Right?

Speaker 3 1:27:42

Yeah, absolutely that's what the? Revision process is as well.

Speaker 1 1:27:45

Awesome. Well, keep writing. That's the bottom line, right? Yeah, keep creating and, uh, we're going to say goodbye to our listeners in just a minute. Virginia, is there anything else you'd like to add?

Speaker 2 1:27:57

Uh no, I think we've covered quite a bit but we haven't arrived at world peace yet. No that that we are still working on.

Speaker 1 1:28:06

We'll do it next time. What's that We'll?

Speaker 3 1:28:09

do it next time.

Speaker 1 1:28:09

I was going to say we'll have a part two. That's what we tell a lot of our guests, but we always mean it right, virginia.

Speaker 2 1:28:14

Yes, we do.

Speaker 1 1:28:15

We'd like to have regulars on here. Maybe we'll do a part two and then we'll figure out the world peace thing later.

Speaker 3 1:28:21

I've enjoyed it.

Speaker 1 1:28:22

That would be wonderful to come back and to our listeners. Remember, life is story and we can get our hands in the clay. Individually and collectively, we can write our own story. See you next time. You, you, you.