How to Write a Novel (For Beginners) — Harlan Coben Interview

Harlon Cobin has written 38 books, and if you want to write thrilling and suspenseful stories, then he's the guy to learn from. His vibe is like the tough love basketball coach who's going to tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. And though it might be a little bit tough in the moment, I promise you're going to leave this conversation motivated to write, to get back to working on whatever it is that you're doing. And Harlland's the master of the plot twist. [music] He's got strong opinions about dialogue, how plot and character work together, and then also he's got this mantra where he's always asking what if? What if?

What if? And that's where we start this conversation.

Well, Haron, I want to start off with this question of what if? Like why is that such an important thing to be asking as you're working on stories, writing novels? >> Well, I'd say it's not just important to be asking when you're working on stories or novels. I think part of it is that you want to have sort of the writer's mind frame all the time or creators. I most of the advice for writing I think works for everything else. Painting, sculpture, whatever. So what if anytime I'm walking down the street, anytime I see somebody, I try to figure out what their story is, the what if.

I mean, I can give you a couple of concrete examples over the years that I've done. I'll give you one quick one. Yeah. >> Um I wrote a book a number of years ago called Promise Me. and promised me started. Um, I overheard some teenagers who I adored talking about drinking and driving. And I pulled them aside and I said, "Promise me." Title of the book, "You won't do that. I don't care if it's 3:00 in the morning. I don't care what you're on. Call me. I'll come pick you up. No questions asked. I won't tell your parents." Now, in real life, nothing else happened. End of story. But fiction writing asking, "What if? What if one of them had called me on the phone? What if I a teenage girl had called me on the phone? I went and I picked her up in New York City. I dropped her off at what I thought was a friend's house. The next day, she's gone and no one at the house knows who she is. What if? So, those are examples

where I'm constantly sort of thinking of what other alternatives there are, what I can do with anything and turn it into a story. And it usually begins the question of what if. >> And so, that's at the beginning of the book. Is that something that you're asking as you're working through the plot itself and you're on page 274, you kind of keep asking that or is that more of a beginning of the book type thing? >> It's a little bit of both. I mean, I I I think that you know what choice is a great thing and a terrible thing. So, there's actually been studies and you may know about this, but like the choice paralyzes us, right? You go into a supermarket, you want to buy a peanut butter, there's one brand, two brands, you buy it, you're happy, whatever.

there's if you come in there's 47 brands and there's natural and there's and there's crispy and you know all that or different kinds and then you go home and you're always questioning yourself. So in writing there's a million choices also. So you have to kind of like get that out of your head, find the two or three best routes, take one and stay and stay with it. And by and one of the ways you do that is of course always by asking sort of what if your character goes any place or what if he does this or what if he does that. So, in a sense, yes. Um, but more concretely, it's really in the beginning. It's really trying to get the idea down and finding something, especially with a novel that you're going to fall in love with and want to spend a long time living with because a novel, you know, it's a commitment. It's not short story is a fun fling maybe, right? But novel is like a marriage. You know, you're going

to be living with that thing for a year plus. Mhm. And what are the things that need to be true for you to say, "All right, I'm ready to pull the trigger and work on this thing." >> It's almost like dating, right? It's like all of a sudden you realize, "I can't quite let this thing go. Um, I have to kind of keep with this thing. This thing, you know, if I try to put it aside, it's still going to be in my heart and in my mind." Um, you know, I have pages and pages of whatifs that are little ideas that I write down. and I write down every idea that I think of if I can and I keep it in a file someplace.

Um, but some just stick, you know, it's sort of like it's it's going through and there's these hooks in your brain and every once in a while one gets snagged on that hook and it just keeps staying with you and you know you want to write

about it. >> And at the beginning of a novel, there's that line from I think it's EL Do who talks about writing is sort of like driving in the fog. So what is it that you know as you're setting out on one of these conquests? >> Right? So writing the the quote from Yale doctor is writing is like driving in the fog with just your headlights on. You can only see a little bit ahead of you, but you can make the whole journey that way. That's part of what I believe.

Um I know the endings when I start. So for me, I compare it to to driving from my home state of New Jersey across across the country to LA. I may go Route 80. Chances are no. I'll go via the, you know, Panama Canal and stop in Tokyo and all that sort of a thing, but I know where the ending is. So, I'm making the journey. I'm only see a little bit ahead of me that way. The other one I sort of use, the the newer um um comparison that I make is uh sort of the GPS theory of life that I apply to writing. So the GPS that I put in because I know the ending is going to be Los Angeles. But if I have it in my in my GPS now when I'm on the road, I can feel very confident in going off the road. I can go off of Route 80 and maybe I'll go to a place in Oklahoma I want to visit. I want maybe I'll go to Mount Rushmore. I can go and there's a gentle voice in my head that's leading me on other roads to eventually

get back on the main road and get to Los Angeles. So the for me the freedom of of knowing the ending actually allows me to be able to go off-road more than if I didn't know it and I was off road and in a panic that I was completely lost. >> I like this analogy. So let's stick with it. As you think about exhibition, um as you think about exposition as you're writing a book, how do you think about, okay, I need to stay on the story. The story's got to be zip zip zip zip. got to keep people hooked versus like, you know what, let's stop at Mount Rushmore. Let's go to In-N-Out Burger, have a nice burger and all that. You know, we'll stay on the road, but hey, we'll go look at something and get off the main trail of story for a little bit.

>> I don't look at at thriller or crime or mystery or whatever you want to call what I do as a genre. I look at it as a form. >> It's like saying a sonata or haiku. And within the form, I can do anything and hopefully have done done everything. But we just had a TV show released this today on Netflix called I Will Find You. Thank you. And that's really a story of father and son. It's a story of redemption. It's a story of friendship.

It's a story of love. It's a story of of a father's need to save a child. But the thriller form makes me have to keep telling a story. I can't get lost in the bliss of my own genius. I can't just naval gaze or naval pick and and do all that. The thriller form forces you to keep writing a story. So the first thing is even if you're doing detours, they have to somehow matter to your final destination to what's going on. People think that means writing fast or not having the things that make a novel special. It's not true. If you don't have heart, if you don't have characters you care about, if you don't have the the larger themes, if you don't have the cool descriptions, it's not a novel and people won't want to read it. It's easier for me, I think, to stir the pulse and stir the mind. But if I don't stir the heart, it's not going to work.

It's going to be like I I just bought the most expensive car in the world, but I don't have any gasoline. You know, I have a a great big screen TV, but I don't plug it in. So, that's the part that I think is what separates um a good story or good thriller from one that people really want to read. I'm really am just telling the story. I I I try to pretend that I'm sort of sitting around the campfire and I'm telling you a story and I don't sort of go like okay now I need a little more character and oh you know I haven't done some this for a little while and I don't I just don't I it's more of a feel thing for me. So if I'm boring myself and I know I got to keep moving ahead um and I think you know it's one of the things you do learn how to do with time. You can also always cut. So, I have a on my computer and I think a lot of writers probably something similar. I have a file if I'm not sure if I want to keep something in

it, I cut it out and I put it in a file that I call spare. Every book has a file called spare. And so, if a book ends up being manuscript pages, four to 500 pages a book. Usually, I would say spare ends up being about 50 pages a book. >> I have written I think I'm on my 37th or 38th novel. I've never once put anything back. Not whatso not even. So, one of the other things is you can cut more than you think. You know, I don't know who it was, I think Hemingway is is usually credited with it, but he's great with everything. Um, Kill All Your Darlings is, you know, or Faulner, one of those guys. Um, and I believe in that that you have to also, it's amazing what you can lose and still have um what you want.

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One of the things that I've noticed is so many of the most experienced writers who come on the show, they say, "You know what? It's just a feel thing. It's just a feel thing." And I think that it can become a feel thing because they've written so much and they've read so much. And so in so far as there's structure and ways of doing things, it's like they've so deeply internalized it that actually what they intuit it is right. But my sense is that for a new writer, a young writer who hasn't written or read as much, it's just a feel thing that advice doesn't work as well.

>> It might not. And uh, you know, you got to go through the process. You hopefully you get better at this. I mean, it always sort of cracks me up that someone will think that, you know, my first published novel was, I think, my fourth written novel, the fourth novel that I wrote. And it cracks me up that people think they should be good at this right away. You could have the skill of LeBron James. If you've never played basketball before, you're going to suck when you get on that court. Why would people think it's different with writing? You have to practice this craft. You just can't go out and think, you know, sometimes you get lucky with the first one. Sometimes you know how to tell a story, but most times you don't. If you're talking about if if you're that way, you you're not going to really need that sort of advice. Other than that, it is a feel thing. Um, it is experience a little bit, but also,

you know, I'm my toughest editor. Most writers I know are their toughest editors. Um, I'm harder on myself than anybody else. If you don't know it's working, you're in trouble. You have to, you know, it's it's good. I know a lot of people enjoy writer groups and it makes you write. Okay, great. I've never had that. I, you know, I usually have a friend or two or a family member whose job is to tell me it's wonderful so I don't get depressed and I just keep writing. It's like faking something else or lying about something else, but it works and so we go with it. But um you know, I know a lot of people have these and and what your friend's telling you about their their opinion in a book might be really good good or it might be complete and utter nonsense. You probably don't need it that early. You should probably feel more free to write more, write faster and then worry if it sucks or not. I mean this is we were

talking off thing about Ann Lamont's bird by bird. She has the great chapter called the shitty first draft that many people are familiar with. I put it slightly a different way. But the problem is is that you know it's scary to write and so you're going to be paralyzed. You're going to have fear and fear can paralyze you which it does for most people or it can fuel you. I try to let it fuel me. I try to write as hard and as fast as I can and turn off the voice that constantly tells me I suck or I embrace that voice. So I almost challenge you like, "Yeah, I suck. Watch how bad I can suck." And I just keep writing. I just keep writing because remember this, no one is going to see it. All the rules that you and I will talk about today, you can break. And I encourage you to break them. The one rule you cannot break is you don't show anybody your shitty first draft. It's for nobody's eyes. And so you go in

knowing that and you write with that freedom. No one is going to see how stupid and lame or mean or aw how awful I am. No one's going to see that. And so I'm just going to write my heart out. I'm going to try not to stop and then I'll go back and fix it.

>> How is it that you have kept this sort of fear of not writing well? This >> I don't mean to be presumptuous but almost this like self-loathing that is sort of in it. So, how do you keep that after 38 books? It's like it's kind of like I feel like Jordan had this like it was just like five titles in a row, we have to go for six. >> Yeah. I I I just think that's part of the makeup. I mean, mo most writers that I know um have that in them. Um that we all have imposttor syndrome. I I Here's the truth. The any writer, every writer I know who thinks they're really good suck.

>> That's when they get bad. only bad writers think they're good. So, I think you lose that edge. That's when you start to phone it in. When you get a little bit that kind of confidence, it it you need a little bit of fear, I think, when you when you write. And yeah, so I I it's something that I've learned to embrace rather than regret. It sounds like maybe that's an awful thing, but it's really not. Like the muse is not an angelic voice on your shoulder singing la, you know, like that. the the muse is more like, you know, my own my my mother when she was allowed through the annoying kind of voice of like, what? You don't want to be with me? What? You want to hang out with your friends? Where you're not going out on a Friday night? We have we have, you know, that's it's always sort of pestering you. Uh I think most writers have a have a inner voice. And if you don't have it, maybe you're not a

writer. That's their thing you have to face. But I have a voice that no matter what I'm sort of doing, including sitting here with you right now, there's a little voice that's always like, you really should be writing. I think that you need that that voice. I don't want to make it sound like it's too wacko or crazy. I live a very normal life, but that sort of that sort of stuff I think helps. Uh you have to be a little bit obsessed with this thing to to do it right.

>> Do you buy the Gustav Floar quote that you want to be regular and orderly in your life so that you can be violent and original in your work? >> Absolutely. I use that quote quite frequently. That's not to say that you can't be crazy and and write crazy, you know, live a crazy life and write crazy. But for me, my normal like a sort of happy suburban dad, you know, my kids are now grown. So, you know, they start they left the nest. But, um, the first day I hit the New York Times bestseller list, I had my fourth child was born.

So, I at the time had a 7-year-old, a four-year-old, a 2-year-old, and a newborn. >> Yeah. So, and my wife was a pediatrician and working. So, it was a heck of a time in the house, but my regular life is sort of orderly and regular and normal. I think that, you know, that sort of hard drinking life style is probably very difficult. And again, most of the top writers that I know um are really good people nor and quote unquote normal people in in real life. And I think we get a lot of it in our therapy maybe also is partially what's going on here.

How much of your self-conception do you think of as an artist? The muse arrives and I'm channeling something greater, something deeper. This is a mission I've been sent on versus I have a 9 to5. You show up, you get to work, you do your job, you put down the pen, and go live the rest of your life. >> Well, I'm I'm kind of neither one of those. I'm definitely not the first one. I hate all that. Oh my god. Oh, you know, I'm sitting there and God comes down and my fingers start moving across the and I don't do it. The characters do Oh, shut up. It's such nonsense. I hate all of that stuff. And know I didn't want to do that, but the characters made me do that. Shut up. Um, and God made me do it. And I have some bigger calling and that's nonsense. Um, I do when I'm writing my best and again most writers that I know who are producing a lot, we do sort of treat it like a job like in this but not necessarily when I finish

I'm done because I think about it all day long. I take my work home with me and I love it. There's another great quote on writing which credited with a lot of different people um which is um amateurs wait for the muse to arrive or inspiration to arrive the rest of us just get to work. And so, and I think there I read that first in a Philip Roth novel. We want it to sound magical and maybe the end result is magical, the process is rarely magical. It might be fun at times and it might be really cool. For me, the best when I'm writing really well, time just vanishes. All of a sudden, I'm like, whoa, I've been working six. I'm sitting at this desk for six hours, you know, and I just going. That's usually for me, you know, the ultimate high, the ultimate feeling, and I just want to keep going. Um, but the process often times is not. Um, and you have to be ready to work on those days as well.

>> What is the part of the writing process, the thing that you're creating that just brings you back? Like I'm a golfer and like when you flush a seven iron like high draw, it's pin high, 10 yards right of the hole. I mean, it's just the greatest feeling in the entire world. I can do that once and it keeps me coming back for three months. What is that for you as a writer? >> Here's the thing. We often try to think about the process a lot and how you feel in the process. And that's going to change. Some days that's going to be great, but a lot of days it's not. The writers who are successful, I think, are the ones who don't have to always have the process be magical. You may, you know, I love writing and I don't love writing. I mean, there's the the great quote that's been given to a million people. The first person I heard say it was Oscar Madison on the old TV show Odd Couple. I don't like writing. I like

having written. For me, that's an important quote. The reason is you may not always love the process, but I always love the creation. I always love the finished work. The comparison I use is I have some friends now, maybe you do too, and their hobby is painting. >> They love to paint. Now they're going, they're taking art classes, they're painting, and while they're painting, they're telling me this wonderful great joy that they experience while they're painting. And I say, "Okay, at the very end of this experience, pretend the canvas is still completely blank. Did you have a wonderful experience? Exact same experience. You did the exact same thing you painted, but there's nothing at all left to show for it." This is a question I love to sort of dis think about because we want to get into process but one of the ways we can make ourselves or force ourselves when the process isn't so much fun is to think

about the creation and there's nothing wrong with that. So again, if you spent the whole day painting and at the end of the day that canvas is still blank, did you really enjoy it >> or do you enjoy when you're looking at it and now you're looking back on it? And I don't really have an answer to that. But the same thing kind of goes with writing. If I write all day and I did that zen feeling, at the end of the day there's nothing on the page, I don't think I'll enjoy it. And so, but that's good. Uh because the creation is what it's all about. We want to create something here. I mean, if you're listening to this podcast, you want to write because you want to communicate with somebody. If you're somebody who's doing it, which I also find nonsense, we could talk about that later. Like, I'm writing only for myself. Okay? It's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about people who want to communicate

with somebody else, then there has to be a creation. There has to be something there, not just in your head, that you can share with somebody else. And so, focus sometimes on the creation. And I think that will help you through the difficult times of process. Writing is about communication. We are writing these books so we can so somebody can read it. And to deny that is And don't do it. You want someone to read it. No one wants to write a book that nobody reads. I don't care who you are. That's therapy. That's not writing.

And that's fine if you want to do therapy. That that's a different kind of writing. That's not the kind of writing I'm talking about. And there's an Arab expression that when one man dies, a whole universe dies. And it's the same thing with reading. When one of you reads my book, all those characters come to life in your head. Different from everybody else's in the entire world. It's a one-on-one thing that I have with you. A writer without a reader is a man who's clapping with one hand. The reader is the other hand. And so I do think of one day I really want this to be read by somebody. I want them to laugh at this thing. I want them to be moved. I want them to cry. I want them to be held in suspense. Whatever it is. And that's one of the things that sometimes when I'm having tough days, I try to think about.

I try to imagine not who the reader is or any of the stuff you normally hear. I just try to imagine that I if I don't write it, no one's going to ever read it. No, this story is not going to exist. It's the Berkeley tree falling in the woods. If a tree falls and no one hears it, no one hears it to make a sound >> with writing. If you write a book and no one reads it, you don't exist as a writer. I know a lot of people disagree with that and that's fine. That's why I love people disagree with me on this stuff, but that's how I feel about it.

>> Does it follow from that that your goal is to get as many people to read your books as possible? >> Yes. And you know what? So is every other damn writer in the world. I always love this question. like, you know, oh, every writer that you've met, every writer who is sat in this chair wants two things. To have more critical acclaim and to have more sales. And any writer who tells you that that's not true, is full of And you can call them on it. No writer in the world wants doesn't want better reviews and doesn't want more sales, who doesn't want more sales, of course. Doesn't mean I'm being pigish about it. Doesn't mean I'm changing what I do to do it. Um, it doesn't mean I'm going to cheapen what I do. It doesn't mean I'm going to do some compromise what I think would make a great story to do it, but of course I want more readers. Who doesn't want more readers? You were talking about um how

when you write a novel, the reader has a relationship with those characters that's completely different. Do you think that that effect is the same in TV for the shows, the books that get turned into shows versus writing? Like is the same thing happening or is it a different phenomenon between different mediums? >> It's definitely diff a different phenomenon because you are now seeing what you know uh I have Sam Worththington and Britt Lauer in this new show. So that's who now you will see David and Rachel. But if you read the book I will find you. Every one of you is going to have a completely different David. Every one of you is going to have a completely different Rachel even if I spend pages and pages describing them which I don't which I don't do. Um, so yes, it's a it's a you know, look, reading is a different experience than watching TV, which is one of the reasons I when I do adaptations, I don't mind

making huge changes >> because I think the mistake people try to do is I want my TV series to be a faithful reproduction of my novel. But it can't be if it's a great novel sometimes because novels are interior. Novels are, you know, have internal dialogue. you have to find other ways of telling that story. And so I found the TV shows and the things more freeing and working better when I realized that one is a visual medium and one is not. And so you your novel should not be the exact same thing as the TV series. And this is controversial for a lot of people. A lot of writers say, you know, if I'm going to do an adaptation has to be exactly faithful to my book. And part of me does ask them, well, why? Because I've already had the experience of reading novel. If you want the experience of reading I Will Find You, read I Will Find You. Why would I want you to repeat the exact same experience

on Netflix? I want the experience to be slightly different. And it should be in my view. This is not a view that most people hold and I understand that. I'm fine with the other view. Um, that's not to say, you know, I want wholesale changes, but I'm very, very careful about what I'm like, "Yeah, you know what? that worked well in the book, but that's not going to work well on on screen. That's just that's not when I did this TV show called The Stranger.

The Stranger in the book was sort of a male computer nerd guy. And visually, that just didn't work. And we ended up hiring an actress named Hannah John Cayman. So, I made a character younger and female who had this really cool vibe to her. And when she came on, instantly, you sort of got ready for the stranger's visit just visually. So, doesn't mean the book was worse the or the or the or better. It doesn't mean I I should go back now and rewrite the book with a female character or I should have kept exactly what I had and had a male character. That's just an example of what I mean by one is a visual medium and one is not.

>> That was a lot. I know. >> No, no, no. I resonate with that strongly because so I just went on a whole Gatsby binge. So, I read the book, I watched the DiCaprio Gatsby movie, I then watched the Robert Redford Gatsby movie, and then I went to the play. And as you were talking about that, I was just grappling with the different things that I think went well and then the different things that honestly I have beef with. Like, I have beef with in the play. Nick Carowway just isn't a central figure. And Nick Carowway is a central figure in The Great Gatsby. Full stop.

But absolutely, there's other things that can be dialed up, dialed down. For example, with a lot of the new CGI in the new DiCaprio Gatsby movie. They just make Gatsby look so big and so grand. And I'm so happy that we have that Gatsby, but we also have like a little bit of a cooler, suave, kind of very well-dressed Robert Redford Gatsby in the 1974 movie. And I'm like, I like that there's different ones. I totally see how things can be dialed up and dialed down, but then the play I was like that betrayed the story.

>> And you can enjoy or not enjoy them all. That's that that's that's fine. And it doesn't in fact there's a a great story from from James M. Kaine, the the great writer who wrote Postman Wings Twice and Double Demny, a famous story where an interviewer said to him, "Don't you hate what Hollywood has done to your books?" He said, "They've done nothing to my books. They're right there on the shelf. [laughter] And that's also my attitude. If you if you watch I will find you tonight on Netflix and you hate it and you love the book doesn't change the book. I you know I remember you know two of my favorite books of the you know when I was sort of coming of age poor noise complaint by Philip Roth and Bonfire the Vanities by Tom Wolf both are horrendous films unwatchable hor but that doesn't change how much I love the book. It's not betraying the book. the book is still the book. So, you know, I get it in one

way and I love that people feel passionate about it, but that's, you know, separating them is not necessarily a terrible thing.

>> You were talking earlier about character development and how you don't like it tends to be pretty quick for you. So, talk to me about that. >> Well, it's not quick. I I think um you know, I'm writing this book. I finished it now. It's be out soon called Plot Twist. It's a memoir I'm writing that I wrote. basically I realizing how much of my own life and stories affect my writing. So it's kind of a writing guide and a little bit of a memoir um in one.

So I was thinking a lot about this question. I think one of the other mistakes that almost every other writing guide that I've read does is that we have chapters called character and plot and setting. And not to talk it in terminology of college applications but I have a more holistic approach. I think character is plot. Plot is character. What it's it's a chicken and egg question that really is dangerous for writers to think about. Um and setting can is plot and setting is character. So is dialogue. All of them overlap. And if you think of them separately, you are making a mistake in my view. I'll give two quick examples. So, Batman, the origin story of Batman, for those who don't know, though most of you do know, is when um Bruce Wayne was a young boy, he saw his parents being killed by by a robber. And so, he dedicates his life to crime fighting and, you know, builds his body up and technology and all that. And

one day, which is the weakest part of the story, a bat flies into his window and that's how he comes up with the name Batman. So, I ask you, is that character or is that plot? Well, character certainly because it's how Batman became Batman, but it's plot. You have a guy with a gun shooting the parents. And if you stop and start thinking of them separately, the danger is, oh, I my character needs an arc here. Um, I don't really tell the story because I need to develop this character or vice versa.

I'm so imshed with this plot that I'm not really worried. It has to be my advice to you because everyone's always told you the other thing. My advice is to think of them as one. One is not more important than the other. I start with an idea, but that doesn't mean that character is not tantamount to me. But I've seen too many times when people have a character that they love and they're trying to develop the character.

Say, "Oh, how do I develop the character? Oh, maybe I should make him an alcoholic or something like that." Rather than having the character being developed by going through things, which is plot. Hm. >> Spider-Man may be a slightly better example. So Spider-Man Peter Parker gets bitten by a radioactive spider. That's not the most interesting part to me. But then he becomes kind of a dick and wants to just be use Spider-Man to make money and get girls and be famous. And he becomes really has tremendous vanity.

And one day a robber runs past him and he doesn't stop him. And that robber ends up killing his uncle Ben that night, the man who is raising him. Oh my god. I love that. That guilt is what makes Spider-Man become Spider-Man and dark. And again, I ask you, is that character or is that flaw? If I start out saying I want Spider-Man, if I think it's character, I might have started off saying I want Spider-Man to be a guy who has some damage thing. I'm trying to make that work in it. But if I start off thinking I'm going to tell the story of Spider-Man as plot, now that plot has become character, character is becoming plot. Does this sound very messy? Yes, it should. But I I'm always in danger.

I'll give one more example, specific example, which is setting. >> So a few years ago, I came up with a book. I wrote a book called The Boy from the Woods. And the idea from The Boy from the Woods came I was hiking with my family in the Ramapo Mountains. And I know every hiking is in right now, but I hate hiking. I don't get it, man. You're walking. It's 800 degrees. It's dusty. Oh, great. There's a tree. There's another tree. Oh, wow. A rock, a tree. And then, and I'm thirsty and I'm hungry. And I love walking in the city.

I love walking and seeing people's faces. I'm going into bookstores. That's what the hell like walking in Woodsport. And I'm lining like this with my family doing this Harland rant. And I see it on the right side of path going out. I see a boy about 5 years old walking on his own and I asked what if what if this boy came out of the woods right now and says I've always lived in the woods. I don't remember any life there. I don't remember parents. I broke into cabins um to to find food where I ate off the land and you know watch TV to learn how to speak but I like a modern day tour. He has no idea how he got in the woods. And 30 years pass and he still doesn't know.

And as the story opens he gets a DNA and is standing across the street from his father. So that's the boy from the woods. If I had had this experience someplace other than the woods, I don't think I would have come up with the idea. So the woods, the setting helped me find a character that would turn into a plot. >> I didn't. It's not divided up. But if I saw that kid when I was walking in New York, probably wouldn't I would have thought of a whole different story. So setting is character as well. And my point again is don't get caught up in and only thinking of one of how do I develop one. It has to be more holistic.

That's my own view. So then tactically if you were to basically be invited to uh Princeton or whatever to give to teach writing then how do you kind of structure a curriculum to basically say I'm going to teach you this. I'm going to teach you this. I'm going to teach you this given that you see it so holistically. >> I may not be able to do it that way. What's funny is I also I often will state that I start with an idea. I start with the what if. But I just gave you the story of the boy from the woods, right? So you tell me what did I start with there. Did I start with a character? Well, yeah. The kid who's in the woods sounds like a character.

Doesn't sound like a story. Did I s Did I start with a story? Oh, he has the DNA test 30 years later to find out what it is. Oh, did I start with setting? Yeah, I was in the woods. So, I think my point would more be not to get you can use them all. You don't have to always think I'm that guy and I have to come up with a character first and now I'll tell his story, which it seems to be what a lot of people think and I think that's I think it's actually wrong to think that

way. >> What do you think makes for good dialogue? >> That's that's a tough one. I mean, dialogue dialogue is my favorite part of writing. >> Huh. It's also the easiest part of writing in some ways. Um, it's the most fun to read. You know, um, Elmore Leonard has the great quote on writing, which is my favorite quote on writing, where he says that, um, I try to cut out all the parts you'd normally skip, which is absolute genius. But what he adds to that, which people don't talk about often, is I bet you don't skip dialogue.

>> Huh. >> There's something about dialogue. Even on a page, right, it takes up less space. It's there's more white on the page. I find that oddly comforting. >> Um, I also think that dialogue is the best way to create character when you were talking. How a person talks tells you more about them than anything else that I can do more than me telling you about them. This is also my points like when a character starts to speak all of a sudden they come to life a little bit more for both the reader and I think the writer to some degree. Um, so yeah, I how to do it I I don't really know. I mean, I think the best way of of doing dialogue is is by reading um and listening in on conversations. The the weird thing about dialogue is dialogue has to feel realistic without being realistic. It has to be authentic but not realistic because the way people really speak is really boring and full of h and pauses and you want a little

bit of that, you know, you want to give it that flavor. Real dialogue doesn't actually work in most novels. Most of the time, if you, you know, go into a a coffee shop, tape a conversation or a conversation with a friend, play it back, you'll fall asleep in four minutes. It never would work in a book. So, you also have to under, but it has to feel like it. So, that's part of it. I try to keep things as short as possible. I try to have people going back and forth a lot. I like to use a lot of humor in my books. I think humor, especially in dialogue, helps to helps make characters more likable, helps develop them. Um, and most of my people are just wise asses. Um, and again, I want the dialogue to try to do a few things. I want it to make you understand and love these characters and I want it to move the story ahead. I also want it to be one of the tests I try to do is if I'm sitting at a pub, is this the

conversation I want to overhear? Um, and if it's not, you probably got to up it. >> Talk to me about how dialogue reveals character. So, the two things that came to mind were word choice and kind of diction, how people say something. So, I'm thinking of a Forest Gump, >> right? >> Simple but wise, right? >> Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get. Very different from this philosopher guy who I had dinner with last night. He makes it known that he's a philosopher from the get-go, >> right? And that's just and that that's opening their voice their mouths. So that's just kind of what you have to as a you know as as a writer kind of get into. I have I mentioned before um the story the boy from the woods. So the character um because he spent the first five years of his life in the woods, he never really feels comfortable in society. He ends up um living in what's

called a an eco capsule in the woods. He doesn't talk much. He's very stoic. That's his personality. Most of my other characters are like their creator. They're loud. They're gregarious. They don't shut up for a minute. Myron Bolitar, who is my series character, is always cracking wise and just, you know, they could have a five, you know, one scene together and you're going to get that from them. And so, you have to sort of reflect what they are. But I just can't I don't know how to put it. I don't say it's not a conscious decision.

I'm not sitting here thinking, "Oh, wait. this is how he would talk because he's stoic. Oh, wait. This is how he would talk about because he's a wise guy who uses, you know, humor as a self-defense mechanism sometimes as a defense mechanism. So, that's just who they are and who they become. It's not necessarily I'm not saying it's a magical process because, you know, I hate all that stuff, but it's not something that I work really hard on. It just kind of happens. Um, it's a it's an organic process. It's a lot. I use the word organic a lot when I describe the process of writing because, you know, you have to practice, but you have to also be organic.

>> If you were trying to teach me to hone my sense of dialogue, like what would we do? I was just thinking like, okay, you know what? Let's let's let's go to a bar. Let's go to a bar. Let's kind of overhear some conversations. We'll hear the mall cop talk. We'll hear the lunch lady talk. We'll hear the eight-year-old boy being yelled at by his mom. Like what is it that we would do to basically attune my sense for different language, different diction, good dialogue?

>> I think the I I think we would do that. But the thing is we have to give ourselves purpose. >> So I would say to you while we're in the pub, someone just keeled over and died, maybe they were shot or you know something happened, we saw a huge fight over in the side and we are debating if we should go over and break a break it up or not. I know all so we give ourselves some sense of purpose and then how we would communicate back and forth.

I think the best dialogue has a sense of urgency to it. Doesn't mean every scene has to have something happen. It's not Mickey Spelain you have to fire a gun to get things going. It could be much much quieter than that. It could be that I'm raising the fact to you that you know I lost my parents at a young age and you and I want to discuss that. There has to be some purpose to whatever your dialogue sort of is. And I think that helps you hone it. I would also the challenge I would try to do is to make is to say it in as few words as possible and go back and forth. Doesn't mean that scenes can't go longer. When I write dialogue, for example, in a script, it's much much shorter than when I do it in the book. And I enjoy book writing much more than I enjoy that sort of dialogue writing because, you know, you have each page is is a minute. In TV world, you really can't have scenes that are much

more than two or three minutes. But I can go chapters after chapters of guys just talking. I write what's called fast-paced novels and I have fast-paced TV shows. I know that you can't have an up without a down. You can't have a right without a left. You can't have a good without an evil. And you can't have darkness without light. You have to have those moments. And you can't have quiet. You can't have a loud without quiet. If my story is there's is always storming going on in the story, then a rainstorm is not going to mean anything. So I think of my stories, especially my the ones that are not the Myron Bolitar ones, the ones that involve sort of family. It's a very placid pool. It's a very placid lake or pond or whatever it is. And so even a small rock can cause a ripple. But if I'm in a churning ocean and I can throw a boulder in there, it's not going to be noticed or be anything.

So you have to have you can't just have pure adrenalinefueled keep going. I I personally find that boring and just not what I want to do. You can't have those other things. You can't have the up without the down. You know, uh when my father passed away, my father was the first sort of big death in my life and I had a wonderful father and I sort of realized you don't get, you know, this is the price you pay for having a great father. You don't get to have all that love and that connection.

that price you pay is now you grieve and now you cry. And so I embrace that. If I, you know, if I wasn't upset about my father's death, if it didn't hit me hard, that would be more tragic. And so that's also good for writing that kind of balance. You need the quiet so you can make that loud moment last. the story he just told with Guinness. If that bar was really loud with the guys screaming at a bunch of stuff like this, it was the slamming every in my mind I'm picturing the scene the place going quiet, everybody hearing it, everybody kind of gasping.

>> You were talking about the lake, the water, and I started thinking about motifs and you know when you were sitting in high school English class or whatever, I hated it. They're always talking about, hey, what's the motif? What's the theme of this? you know, as if this is like the core thing that writers are thinking about. And I'm sure some do, some don't. Where do you sit on this? Is that something you're trying to consciously cultivate or No, >> I think it's this is one of the things I discovered when I was writing plot twist is that I constantly go over. I don't consciously think, oh, I'm gonna write a novel that's going to be about father sons, but I do anyway just because it was, you know, the lo I lost a lot of people um in my 20s and early 30s.

>> So, your dad died in ' 8. >> Yeah, dad died, mom died, and I I think um I had done uh and I didn't do my dad's eulogy because I was too destroyed. I think I did seven eulogies by the time I was 32. And so, I write a lot about missing people. My that's my millu. Agatha Christie had dead people. Philip Roth had the Jewish experience. Um Tess Garrettson writes about medical things. I mean people have their the things I write about missing people. I think because there's such hope there. When someone goes missing there's a chance you can be redeemed. A chance you can still find them. When someone's murdered or dead I mean you can have a book about justice. You can have a book about that.

that doesn't really justice doesn't really interest me. Retribution doesn't really interest me. Punishment doesn't really interest me. What interests me is hope. Um so I will find you uh when we're talking about that's now the show. So it starts uh the first line of the book is in my fifth year of a life sentence for murdering my own child. Spoiler alert, I didn't do it. So a man is in prison. He's in his fifth year after the murder of his three-year-old child that everybody thinks he did. And a moment or two later, Brit Lowour from Seance is going to come and show him a photograph of a boy who's 8 years old in the background of a photograph who they both believe might be the son, never died, still alive somehow. That's an ultimate story of hope. I mean, might be a mystery, it might be a thriller, there's going to be an escape from prison, there's going to be that stuff, but really it's about hope. Um, and I

write a lot about that. So I don't but I don't consciously set out saying I don't want to write a novel about hope. It's just where I fall into based on my life experience. This is what again why I wrote this memoir. What I realized was that I can't help but write the things that I write. Even though I'm a commercial writer writing thrillers, it's always something that came from my personal life in my childhood and and the battle scars that we all carry. I'm not unique. I I don't think I have more battle scars or less than mo. Everybody has weird stuff in their life. As I went through my life, I was like people like, "Wow." I'm like, "But yeah, but you think about your own life. You probably have a lot of weird too.

>> But I don't consciously dig at it. It's just part of what makes me makes me and so part of what I throw into writing. So I don't consciously think this is going to be my theme or motif or whatever." It's just it's there and it happens. But it has to be there. If you write a novel that doesn't have it, now it's, you know, now it's a piece of Now it's just something to pass the time. >> Why have you chosen to focus on ordinary characters instead of the CIA detective, instead of the guy in Afghanistan with the sniper, something like that?

>> Because I find that boring, frankly. I have a series character named Myron Bolitar who's a little bit more heroic. He and Win is sidekick. They do have certain special skills but you know they're still happy to be human. Also just you know I think that we relate to a person who's you know the ordinary. I mean I Hitchcock is obviously um influence here the e the ordinary man the extraordinary circumstance. I liken every man because I I often write in first person. I often write really from that perspective and I don't quite relate as well to a guy who can do a lot of things. That said I've written 30some books. So sometimes I do have characters. Wild, the boy from the woods, has more skills than than some other people. Um, but for the most part, the books I guess I'm most famous for, it's a happy sort of family or especially the TV series. It's sort of a happy family circumstance and then one

little thing goes wrong that sets everything off.

>> Tell me about Hitchcock. >> He talks about suspense this way. Go there. So two people are sitting at a table and there's a bomb under the table. There's two ways of playing it. One is the bomb just goes off. Total surprise blah blah blah blah. But if we know the bomb is there now we the whole conversation takes on a new dimension. So that's that sort of ticking time bomb. And what I actually find find interesting where I disagree with him on this is we don't want to use the same thing all the time. There are times we just want that bomb to explode out of nowhere. That's what's going to work.

And so when this is why I'm always wary of giving, though I've been doing that a lot or listening to writing advice because nothing is 100% applicable. You have to change up. That's what makes a story interesting. Sometimes you're going fast, sometimes you're going slow, sometimes you're doing this. But you know, the whole thing was if there's a bomb going going to go off now, we are in suspense. If I'm walking down the road, my hero's walking down the road, I'm from my hero's perspective and all of a sudden he gets jumped. That's one kind of writing. But if I know from another perspective there's a guy hiding behind the the wall there and my character around the corner. My character's coming down. He's going to attack him. He goes back and forth.

That's a different kind of suspense. There's a scene because I again I had the premiere last night for for I for I will find you where David is escaping prison and he's disguised as he's escaping prison and he gets to the elevator and it was so much fun to watch with a group of people because they were all sort of gasping and he's going to get away with it and all of a sudden they just see in the background like his arch enemy show up behind him and doesn't know who he is yet and we don't know is he going to figure out who he is and the warden turns around is telling him no it's okay and and going back and forth and we were filming it, you know, we had it on him, we had it on on the two characters going back and forth, back and forth, and then eventually we see the guy's eyes narrow and he starts reaching slowly for his, you know, and so all of that that's a different kind of suspense, too. But I love all that. I

love doing all those different ones, but use all those suspense tools if you can. Not in a cheap way, not in a gimmicky way. Has to be what the story is going to call for. >> What are the cheap ways and the gimmicky ways? you know, having a cliffhanger just for the sake of having a cliffhanger. What I try to think about when I'm doing when I'm doing one is, is there going to be an emotional resonance to this twist? I do a lot of twists and turns. I'm known as a twist and turns guy. I know that. But I try to make each twist or turn have some kind of emotional component. There's slight of hand, but slight of hand alone is not going to make the story work. It has to be a slight of hand that okay, it's not I didn't see that card coming, but also changes all the other cards. It changes the whole story in some way. It changes how you think about the character. So, they have to be sort of bigger in that

way. Here's the thing with suspense. There's a lot of complicated answers, but when you're writing when you're writing a novel is do I want to keep does the person want to keep reading? If they can put the book down, you did something wrong. And today's world especially you have to write a novel like that because you know in the days of of Jane Austin and dusty they had no other competition. You have to be realistic about the fact that you have competition you have Netflix. You have your phone scrolling which I think is the worst one right now that we all that we all face. We have shorter attention spans. And again that doesn't mean you know cut out all the things that make a novel great but you have to up your game. The first line of I will find you is I am serving the fifth year of a life sentence for murdering my own child. Spoiler alert, I didn't do it.

You're in the story. >> Yeah, >> you got to be in the story right away. Kurt Vonagget says, "Start your novel as close to the end as you can." I always say, "Start everything as you can in the middle." I'm not having him walk into the church. I'm not having him sit down at the church. I'm not having him notice the flowers right now in the church. I'm not having him watch just right there. Right. I'm sitting in the back pew watching the only woman I would ever love marry another man. You're in a little bit more. And that may seem gimmicky. I don't think it is. I think what I try to do in my first sentences is make a promise to you that this is what we're going to have a real story here and this is what it's going to sort of be about. And even that first sentence is a story in and of itself. As you were giving those examples, I thought of Amortals and he talked about how when he's starting a novel, it's

kind of like seeing a door. And you know, you can imagine all these different doors. Ah, you know, that one doesn't look so interesting. That one doesn't look so interesting. But then all of a sudden, you see this door and something about the door just compels you. It's like exactly what you're saying. All you see is the door and you're like, I know that what is in that house is interesting. Even if I don't know what's in that house and I can begin to imagine what if what is inside that house and I just look at the door and I open the door. I get a little glimpse of what's inside that first view and I'm just off to the races. And I'm hearing that as a writer and I'm also seeing that now as a reader after hearing those first sentences. I always look at a house and I say there's a whole there's a whole universe in that family that none of us know. One of the things with human condition is we all

think that we are we we can read everybody else but no one can read us. I know what you're thinking but you don't ever know really what I'm thinking. And of course by definition that can't be true but we all have that. We all think and so when I see a house there is a world going on that I know nothing about. I may know the family that lives there. I may think they're the nicest family in the world, but I have and you have no idea what's actually going on.

And here's where setting is character I was mentioning before or plot. If I walk into that house, so it's a setting. I'm setting making a setting of a house. Well, how what's the paint job like? What color do they paint? How are they keeping the the yard? I go in the house. I start going through drawers. What am I learning? How much am I learning about the person? What's in their medicine chest? What's in the refrigerator?

That's not just setting for the sake of setting to create a mood, which is part of what setting doing, but that's creating character. What food? I open the refrigerator when I used to go to my brother's apartment. My right, my brother had a completely empty refrigerator and in his freezer, he only had bottles of vodka. This tells you this is not a family home, right? [laughter] This tells you it's not a family home. So, what else?

How do they decorate? How do they paint? I'm looking around your place right now. What can I tell about you? Your decorations here at a lot of character. You are a Renaissance kind of a man. You like a lot of different things. A lot of this stuff is antiquey. You are not a guy who has if I came in and you had one sort of modern painting on the wall. That's You're a different guy. >> Not me. >> Exactly. You got old. I mean, you have everything here. There's nothing here that that was that probably none of this was done before you were even born, my friend. Right.

>> I like very little modern. My parents had that that that old series of books too on my show. >> The only exception. But then you'd probably look at the albums and you'd be like, "Why does he like modern music?" But then nothing else modern. What is going on there? >> But that again, that's part of what I would use to develop your character. So my point is that that this if I'm trying to develop you as a character, I would have people walk I would have the writer walk through and describe this room. So everything ma matters. Setting is also character. Mhm. As you're describing spaces, what have you found to be good ways to do that? Are you like long exposition? Are you like, "Hey, you know what? Two or three things, you'll be good."

>> Always two or three things you'll be good. I'm not I mean there's I've done ones, but I do it very very in a very kind of funny quick way, one paragraph. But I what I usually try to find is the one thing that brings it all to life. I'll give you an example. I was a member of another group called the Adams Roundt which is a bunch of mystery writers that used to have lunch together once a month. It was founded by Mary Higgins Clark and over the years our membership included Lawrence Block, Peter Stra, um Susan Issacs, Judith Kelman, uh Lee Child, Nelson Deil. So we had a lot of writers and one time the subject came up of what's the scariest noise in the world? Is it a man screaming torture? Is it a wife crying? Is it a woman? You know, but we went on and on and guy named Warren Murphy, who is a wonderful writer, who's deceased now, but Warren says, "No, no. The scariest, here's the scariest sound. You're alone in the

woods. You're alone in a cabin in the woods. You know, you're all alone in the cabin in the woods. You're alone in the cabin in the woods. And from upstairs, you hear the toilet flush." [laughter] And that's the moment you're looking for as a writer. It's the flushed toilet moment that brings everything to life. So if I'm describing Route 23 in Wayne, New Jersey, I could say it's four lanes across with this or that. But what I usually will say is there's a tattoo parlor on Route 23 in Wayne, New Jersey called Think about it. Tattoos while you wait. Like how else would you do it? You leave your arm behind and say put a skull and that will make bring these things to life more than pages and pages of description of the that will bore people. Find if you will the flushed toilet moment in your writing. I had

this friend growing up, his name was Seth. >> Yeah. >> And uh he had a very scary thing happen to him when he was a kid. He was home one day and he was home alone and he saw a homeless guy sleeping in his bed as he walked into his bedroom. What if? What do you do? Reminds me of the toilet flushing. >> You imagine being like 8-year-old kid, >> right? >> And I've just realized in this conversation, it doesn't take much. It's got to be really good. Talk about describing the room. talk about describing the character, talking about the what if. It doesn't take much, but it's got to be really good.

>> You always look for those sort of moments that can bring things to life and that are interesting. You can't bore a reader. That's the other thing. Like I love description. Doesn't mean can't have descriptions, but those descriptions have to be good. If you're describing somebody having like grass that's too long or whatever out here, it's tall enough to to go on the adult wides. You know what I mean? Like you have to find different ways of being able to sort of say it, you know, keeping the grass. The my neighbors used to keep the grass great. It looked like the PGA event. So different ways. I didn't mean funny, but just like you can't just say the grass is green. You have to find ways that especially in today's world that every I ask myself on every paragraph, every sentence, every word if I can, is this part compelling?

Is this part gripping? And if it's not, I have to find a way of changing it. That's what it is. And again, it doesn't mean short changing. Every great novel, every great book of any kind has descriptions. It has themes. It has those things. You have to have them. But how do I make them even those parts more compelling and living breathing unknown? If you're writing that section, a lot of people are going to be nodding along when I say this where I don't really like this part, but I kind of got to get through it. I got to get him into this.

So, this part of the book is not really great. And no, no, you don't don't like don't cheat yourself that way. Find a way of making even the part that may be mundane interesting >> so people want to read it. Maybe you have to up your pros in that part. Maybe it's something else, but whatever it is, you have to make sure that there's no fat on the bone. And it doesn't mean cutting and making it shorter necessarily. It means changing it so that it's compelling.

>> When you say you got to up your pros, what do you mean by that? that you want your sentences to not stand out when you're telling a story. I know it sounds weird and some people are reading strictly for pros on. Certain writers, we read only for the pros or mostly for the pros. Um, and that's great. There's not but if you're doing like if I'm having a a fight scene or or or an action scene, I sometimes don't want to distract you, you know, I want it to be more shorter sentences. I want it to sometimes not even have a subject. I wanted to maybe be weirdly punctuated just different moods for different kind of things. Again, this is what I'm saying is you don't stick to one thing.

Do a lot of different things. Whatever is going to work works and whatever

doesn't. >> How do you think about the role of a chapter, long chapters, short chapters, what their jobs are, how do you chunk them up? >> I don't think of it that way, but I naturally do. My brain naturally has short chapters, and I naturally end each one on some form of a cliffhanger. No, a guy is not falling off a cliff literally each time. But the same way that opening sentences I gave you hopefully ask a question. I I want to ask the question.

Um, one of the other things that is bad about suspense or or the dangerous suspense is withholding information in a frustrating way. And we've all experienced that. And sometimes on my TV shows, we do it and it and it makes me a little angry. So, I'm always kind of fighting the battle to not do that. The the best way of doing suspense is not by not answering questions. It's actually the opposite. The best way of creating suspense is answering questions, but those questions lead to even more questions and deeper questions. It's Alice and Wonderland going down the rabbit hole. You're going farther down.

So, I mentioned before that um I wrote a book. I was writing a book, The Boy from the Woods and the Match. There are two books in this series. In one of the beginning of the book, Wild, the character who for over now he's in his, you know, early late 30s, never knows how he got in the woods, never knows who his parents are, doesn't know anything, has gotten a DNA test back, he tells us, and he's standing across the street from his father. Now, there are writers who would not have him approach his father for 50 pages, right? They would find ways of stalling, the wife would come out, he'd drive away, all of that. No, I had him first chapter walk up to his father and say, "You're my father.

Here's the DNA without giving anything away." His father's answer changes everything for him. So, I've answered the question and I've opened up a bigger question. >> Yeah, >> that's what the best kind of suspense can do. Not I didn't wait until the last chapter for him to finally get to his father, you know. I try to get as often as I can. I try to give you an answer because that's nice for it's enjoyable. It's an enjoyable experience. It's not frustrating. But make that answer lead to even more questions and make the story even deeper. That's a challenge.

It's not easy to do that, but that's part of the challenge already.

How do you think about the role of primary characters and secondary characters? Like, do you want a lot of primary characters? Do you not want a lot of primary characters? And then are you hesitant, reticent to introduce secondary characters into it? >> Again, I sort of tell the story and what happens in almost every book or or when I'm writing my best is there's always a character I thought would be like a two-page character >> and ends up being, you know, a ends up coming back and being a leading character. I had my Bolitar series, um, but I think it was the the fourth or fifth where I had a real moment in his life that was devastating. in the end and when he opens up the next book, he's with a woman who I intended for him to be with for literally the first scene of the book and then when his sidekick was going to come grab him and they were going off on adventures and it ends up six books later they got married. I mean

that she ended up coming back into the story later on wasn't intended and that's the kind of thing that I love happening sometimes with secondary character. My favorite parts of the novel are where a secondary character takes over a book. had it happen to Missing You. I've had it happen three or four times in books, uh, Just One Look. Uh, there's two examples I can think of off the top of my head where a secondary character almost ended up being the main character. And my guess is if you were a purist and you would read it, you're like, and when we make the TV shows, they always try to change it. They're like, "No, no, no. You have to have your hero do this. You can't have a secondary character do this. Your hero has to do this." But when you know the rules, break them. And so it worked better for me as a book to have those secondary characters take on the moments that the hero does. I I realize I write within a

genre or whatever form that people talk about, but I like to break the rules within that in a way that you probably don't really you may not notice as much, but that's part of it. Like so sec I've had times where the second the hero doesn't end up doing the heroic thing. It's the secondary character who ends up saving the day. And I think that just makes the book somehow stronger. it's not following. You know, you're sitting there waiting for that big showdown moment in. I always hate those that a lot of the private eye novels have where the, you know, the the the person that they're trying to rescue is locked up and they're coming around and God, I get so bored with that. So, I don't do it. I just do something different.

>> You were talking about your writer groups earlier and you're bringing together really good novelists and I'm curious to hear what are you guys how are you guys reading? What is it that you're talking about? What is it that you're picking up on? What is it like to read from your point of view? >> Oh, yeah. I mean, well, maybe I I wanted to correct that. I've never been in a writer's group or writing. I hang out with other writers and for the most part, we never talk about writing. I never talk about what I'm writing. And most writers I know never talk about what they're writing. And I'm going to defend that position.

Um, a lot of people, so you're going to go to a cocktail party and you're writing a book and you are and you want and so you start saying, "Oh, I'm writing a book and it's about blah blah blah." And I can almost see it's like a balloon. It's losing air. Talking about what you're writing is not good for you. Keep it inside. I'll put it this way. I'm writing a book right now. I am dying to tell you what it's about. But the only way I'm going to get that satisfaction is to write goddamn book. To write the book. Nothing. Sometimes if I tell you what it's about, I get a little bit of satisfaction out of it. Right? If I'm if I'm that person and I'm writing a book, oh, I'm going to be a writer and here's what my book's about. That person's not going to finish the book. Guarantee you they're not going to because they're getting a little satisfaction. They're getting a little that air is coming out

of that balloon. The only way that air is coming out of that balloon is on the page. So, and this is true most writers I know I don't think, you know, there's some writers who like to talk things out, talk out plot points, that's different. Uh, but if you think a person going to a cocktail party or you want to give the elevator pitch or tell me what your book's about, normally that's a person who's not going to finish their novel. Don't give yourself that satisfaction. Don't let yourself enjoy that because that's going to be an outlet. The I have the story. I'm dying to tell you what the story is. The only way I'm going to get that satisfaction is to write the whole book, not the first 50 pages for you to read. Be and I'm giving it to you not because I want your opinion on it because I want the satisfaction of giving you those pages and having you read it. The only way I'm getting that satisfaction is to write

the entire book.

>> Tell me about the different places that you've written. Like you're not like a big regimen guy. There was the story of you writing in an Uber for three weeks and it seems like you just sort of follow what's working. All right, we'll do this. Then we'll follow what's working. Okay, we'll do go do that. But the binding thread is not really writing at home that much, >> right? >> Especially earlier on. >> Yes. So, and and this, by the way, is not this is just how I do it. Um, there's a plenty of great writers who have a home office. My my pal John Gisham is very regimented. He has a cottage behind his house that has no internet and he wakes up at the same time and gets there at the same time and leaves at the same time. And I kind of w I'm jealous. I kind of wish I could be that guy. And there's a lot of writers who do that. They have cool home offices. There's books we both know coffee table books of writer home

offices. That's never worked for me. Part of it is because I think I was writing with my kids at home. And and it's delusional to think that you can do that if you're if you're a parent and any parent sort of knows that. I had this when my first child was born and my wife was working as a pediatrician. I had this it's I can only call it like an LSD induced delusion um that I would my daughter would quietly sit in the corner and play while I I wrote and of course that just just does not happen. So I started to leave the house early. I like a little white noise. Um, I don't like, you know, I'm I'm s I was sad when coffee shops started to get internet service because like everybody else, I'm not as disciplined as I should be and sometimes I'll pick up my phone, start scrolling or sometimes I'll start exploring internet. So I I don't, you know, I try taking that. So what I find is um a lot of people are have a

routine. I'm a serial routinist is what I sort of say. So you know, for a little while I'll work at a certain coffee shop and then that coffee shop won't work anymore. It's like I got a horse. I ride that force as hard as I can. That horse dies, I'm looking for another horse. So, two examples, one you you mentioned, um I took rid share for the first time. I think it was 2012 to 14 somewhere at Ranger. I was writing a book called The Stranger and I started to try to justify why I'm spending the money because I just didn't want to drive that day, you know, and I was like, "Oh, well, by the time I pay for parking in New York and the tolls, I'm actually making money doing that." And I'm feeling tremendous guilt because guilt is a big part of writing. And I took out my notepad and I started to write in the back of the Uber and I wrote really well. So for three weeks I took Ubers all day long and I

finished the book which became expensive. So thank goodness that stopped working. Um there was another time I took my son to I dropped my son off at school. My routine was always to drop my kids off at school and then find a place to write. So if I went back home I would find an excuse not not to write. It would be like, and I'm not a handyman at all, but like I would go home and you f you will find, and everybody out there who's a writer knows, you will find any excuse not to write. And the last example I can give is, so I dropped off my kid at school and I went to the the local stop and shop and near the deli counter, they had like a table for people to eat their sandwiches or have coffee on that I never saw anybody use.

I mean, who the hell would sit at a at a deli counter? And I sat there and I wrote and I wrote really well. for about four months. I would go like the deli guys knew me. I came home smelling like olive loaf. You know what I mean? I just sat at this deli counter all day and I and I wrote and then that stopped working. I had to find something else.

>> I like this that there's always time to write. You said you can skip the TV show you're watching. You can wake up an hour earlier. You can write during lunch. You always have time to write. If your life is so full of other things that you don't have time to write, then writing isn't a priority and you're not a writer. >> Yeah. And that's okay. You're not a writer. Um, face it and move on with your life. Um, I the other example I give is I mentioned before Mary Higgins Clark, huge best-selling writer, Where are the children was her her first legendary book. When Mary was 37 years old, she had five kids. Her husband died. Five kids. 37 years old. And this was in like I think the year was like 1962 or three. So it's not an ear when people were helping you. Had no life insurance. Um, and the next day her mother-in-law also dies, like in shock over her son dying. So, Mary's left a poor widow with five kids. So, Mary had

a full-time job where she would live in New Jersey and she would come into New York City. She would wake up and she would write at the kitchen table from 5:00 a.m. to 7 a.m. and then wake the kids up to to to go to school and make them lunch and do all the things she had to do. They were young kids. So my point, you know, she could do it. And I always I think a lot about Mary. You know, I love Mary, wonderful friend and a wonderful mentor in and and how to behave as a writer and she's really great to her her readers and people loved her. It's hard to say after that I have an excuse. I know all of you have busy lives. We all have busy lives. But here's the thing, you have priorities. If writing isn't one of your priorities, and this is nothing to feel bad about, that's okay.

But it's going to be very hard to be a writer. have say may take me three years instead of one year. That's great. Maybe you can do that. I find it doesn't normally happen because you have to be a bit obsessive to want to write. It can't be something you're doing as a hobby. And and and and I've never seen anybody I'm sure that there are, but every writer I know who found this idea and became a successful writer was completely obsessed. And so that's the reason I sort of say that. And it's but part of it is to be motivational and kicking your ass a little bit, but part of it is also to face up to the fact that maybe you're just a hobbyist.

That's fine. It's going to be hard if you to be to take that hobby and make it successful just as it would be with anything. Just as if I casually took up

basketball. >> Let's end with this. You keep talking about the difference between genre and form. Why is that such an important distinction? Well, >> it's not an important distinction. It's how I I think about it. Um, I I think when you think of it as a genre, you you worry about the rules too much. Um, and you're staying within a a formulaic space. Um, I if there's a formula what I do, I haven't found it yet other than writing the best story that I can and trying to hold you in suspense and trying to turn a twist. You know, that those are the the hallmarks that I do. But I if I'm thinking of it as a mystery where I'm mostly focused on those twists and turns, I don't think the novel will work as well as if I'm telling an overall story that has this as its engine. But really, what I'm worried about is that there's there's heart. Again, I can stir the pulse. I can stir the mind. I don't know, you know, if he can't stir the

heart, it's all not going to work. And that's not part of what you think of his genre. You think of his genre sort of as Agatha Christie. there's 12 people in a room. One live is the murderer. I don't think that way. It might be that and it might end up being that that I try to think of each character as their own. I try to watch every person that I meet in real life and every character that I create. I tell my kids this. One of the lessons of teaching kids is um every human being you see has hopes and dreams. It's a very simple thought. I'm not saying they have a big backstory.

They may, they may not. But every person you walk in hopes and dreams and what are those hopes and dreams and what happened to those hopes and dreams? And that's how you really do create character. And that's how you also have empathy for other human beings. That's not just somebody on the road. That's not just somebody who's high up. They had hopes and dreams. What were they? Were their heartbroken by them? Did they accomplish them? When they accomplished them, did was it everything they thought it would be? These are the questions I constantly ask myself all day long.

>> Agreed. Nice to see you. >> Thank you very much. >> Sure. My pleasure. Player.