Jack Reacher

A recurring hero makes every new book pre-approved by readers. The Reacher series has sold more than 200 million books, outsold Harry Potter on Amazon UK, and sells a new copy about every 9 seconds. Child says readers who liked one book are glad the same man returns, so each year's book is already approved in their minds.

Readers want a new plot and context but the comfort of an old friend visiting for a couple of days. Child writes what he loved as a reader, and series were always his favorite. He points to Stephen King, bought on name alone.

How I Write

Treat writing as both noble art and a job, fully. Child says a writer must believe both at 100 percent. The job side, family income and publishers depending on the work, supplies the discipline. He started after being fired in a TV shake-up and needed an income, and that financial contract later became an emotional promise never to let readers down.

Writers balk at commercial aims, yet nobody tells a hedge fund not to chase money. Recalling 1970s theater troupes that boasted about empty houses, he asks: "If you write a book and nobody reads it, have you written a book?"

How I Write▶ 32:57

A fixed start date every year keeps the yearly release reliable. Child starts each Reacher book on September 1 and delivers in March or April, so a new book comes out every year. Series readers are disappointed if a year is missed.

Each summer his ideas fade and he feels washed up, then late in August an idea and a first line appear. "The imagination somehow is biddable. You can quiet it down and you can crank it up depending on when you need to."

How I Write▶ 12:47

Skip the outline so you stay curious about your own story. Child has never made a synopsis or plot list. Even a two-page outline would mean he had told himself the story and was bored with it, so he starts from a location and improvises, discovering the story as the reader would.

Some of his friends write 300-page outlines. "It really is that simple."

How I Write▶ 7:48

Reading tens of thousands of books replaces the outline. Child says his method works because heavy reading built an internal database of plots, characters, cliffhangers and structures, a "monster plan and outline" in his head. He writes one book a year and reads hundreds.

Favorite writers taught him what to copy and avoid: Alistair MacLean wrote a near-cartoon hero who stayed plausible but declined after about eight books; John D. MacDonald's 21 Travis McGee books rarely had anything happen on page one yet couldn't be put down. "We're not predominantly a writer, we're predominantly a reader."

How I Write▶ 49:35

Pick a temperature and a known place before anything else. Child begins each book with a feeling, hot and arid or cold and misty, the way a composer picks a key, then a place he knows from past visits, such as baking West Texas or gray Maine in April. He never researches for a book.

The setting sets the physics of the story: "It gives you a stage on which certain action is inevitable and certain is implausible."

How I Write▶ 5:46

Open in the middle of the action, not the backstory. Beginners explain where a character grew up before the story starts. Child's rule is in medias res: open on something intriguing happening now and explain later, if at all.

"Do not start where when the earth cooled. Start with the action right now."

How I Write▶ 44:46

Imply a question early and readers stay for the answer. From about 40,000 hours of television, Child learned people are hardwired to want answers. After remote controls arrived around 1990, TV held viewers through breaks with trivia teasers like who was first choice for Dirty Harry.

The question doesn't need to matter, which makes plotting easier than people think. He never plans chapter endings; they are instinctively obvious from TV cliffhangers. "You imply a question, doesn't matter what it is... people will stick around to find out the answer."

How I Write▶ 27:30

Make every sentence's rhythm tip forward to carry casual readers. Child pictures readers as rings of Saturn, habitual readers at the center and one-book-a-year readers at the edge, and one book must please both. He spends much of his time on each sentence's rhythm so the beat always tips forward, like a Beatles song that ends slightly faster than it starts.

Experienced readers see the style as a style; casual readers just keep going. Hundreds have told him "I loved your book. I finished it," which brings them self-esteem. "It's like I have my hand gently on their back just pushing them through. They don't notice."

How I Write▶ 22:42

Tie up loose ends; readers want the writer to do the work. Child twice left a minor character's fate unstated or left a conclusion undrawn, and readers hated it both times.

"Readers wanted you to do the work and tell them the story."

How I Write▶ 46:30

Write a character you like instead of designing for likability. Child worried nobody would like the first Reacher, who shoots people in the back and never changes his clothes, but wrote him to please himself, and many readers shared his taste.

He quotes David Mamet: the worst answer to "are we going to like you?" is "yes, and I'll tell you why," the best is "I don't know and I don't care." "The more you design it the worse it gets."

How I Write▶ 36:57

Set the lone hero where a stranger can plausibly drift in. Child, a British immigrant, set Reacher in America because the myth of the noble loner needs a huge, half-empty country; in tight British settings everyone knows everyone's business.

He made exactly 100 US visits before immigrating in 1998. An outsider risks wrong details but sees what Americans no longer notice.

How I Write

Dialogue is a structured illusion, with repetition carrying emphasis. Real speech is incoherent, so natural-seeming dialogue is built for rhythm so emphasis lands on the key word without italics. Upset people repeat charged words, as in "I need my money. I have lost my money."

He once won a prize for natural dialogue, and compares emotional repetition to a song chorus.

How I Write▶ 38:50

Sketch characters with one visual detail and keep violence brief. One detail like a gray ponytail with double denim, or a type of teeth, lets readers place a person. Violence feels real when it is quick and leaves after-effects, unlike movie brawls.

A dental hygienist fan pointed out his frequent use of teeth. "If you get hit in the head, you are sick and dizzy for a week."

How I Write▶ 56:57