What
genre do you write and why?
I believe fully in the principle
espoused by Robert Louis Stevenson, that you can only write what you would read
if someone else had written it. For me
that’s thrillers. The few times I’ve set
out to try something different, that’s what I end up with, and there’s no point
in fighting it. I find the thriller form
to be wondrously pure, since all thrillers are essentially quest stories,
harking back structurally to tales from Greek mythology and legends of lore of
great heroes on a mission to save something far bigger than just
themselves. That describes the thriller
form in a nutshell and it’s the formula that defines structure for me. With every book I write, I’m trying to sweep
the reader away the same way Robert Ludlum, Stephen King, Clive Cussler, Irving
Wallace, John Le Carre, and all the other authors whose thrillers swept me away
years ago and made me want to be a writer.
Tell us about
your latest book.
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| http://amzn.to/1R8TBLC |
Strong Light of
Day, the seventh in my Texas Ranger
Caitlin Strong series, follows Caitlin as she searches for the connection
between thirty high school students who vanished while on a field trip and
cattle nearby that’s been picked clean to the bone. It features some of the best action scenes
I’ve ever written, along with a truly scary plot going all the way back to the
Cold War involving agro-terrorism, an attack on America’s food supply. The first thing you have do in a series is to
always keep the characters fresh and with each book I strive to confront them
with new emotional challenges and one of those forms a centerpiece here,
involving the son of Caitlin’s reformed outlaw boy friend Cort Wesley Masters
who’s her surrogate son as well. I
believe whole-heartedly in the old John D. McDonald mantra that story is stuff
happening to people the reader cares about, and in Strong Light of Day I think the reader comes to care about Caitlin
more than ever before.
What advice do you have for other writers?
Tell a story!
Sounds simple, I know, but it reminds me of the quote from Samuel
Johnson about a dog walking on its hind legs:
“It is seldom done well, but you’re surprised to see it done at
all.” Same thing with telling a
story. Beginning writers focus on a lot
of things, but what stops you in your tracks faster than anything is the
ability to craft of a sequential beginning, middle and end. Without that, nothing else you do, no matter
how well you do it, matters.
Storytelling isn’t rocket science.
It’s about being able to define the conflict in every scene you set,
about creating the kind of suspense that makes it impossible for a reader to
put the book down. That means starting
chapters with hooks and ending them with cliffhangers. It means challenging your heroes with
obstacles that lie between them and the successful completion of their
quest. It means creating high enough
stakes, both structural and emotional, that forge a bond between writer and
reader that I consider sacred. The other
thing I’d say is don’t wait around to start your second book; you should be
writing it while you’re trying to market/sell your first book, because chances
are it’s going to be better and what saved me early on in my career was knowing
I had a better book coming if the first one didn’t work.
What's your favourite quote about writing/for writers?
“When describing a scene, always know where the light is
coming from.” My agent Natalia Aponte
related that to me, and I don’t actually know who said it. But it’s one of the few lessons I believe
applies to all writers without exception.
I say that because my editor at Forge Books Bob Gleason just mentioned
to me that properly crafting a scene is becoming a lost art. But if you knew where the light is coming
from, you’ll know where the characters are in relation to each other and what
they are seeing. And in describing what
they say, you can also describe what they’re feeling, what’s driving them,
where the conflict is and how the suspense is generated. Being able to properly set or stage a scene
might be the most underrated facet of becoming a successful writer. Let me give you a perfect example from the
next Caitlin Strong book, Strong Cold
Dead, which climaxes on the grounds of a traveling amusement park. Caitlin chases the villain into an attraction
known as the Chamber of Horrors and only once she was inside did I realize it
was same attraction she’d been inside before as a kid when it scared the hell
out of her. So, in addition to chasing
down the bad guy, she’s revisited by all these old fears that are then
juxtaposed against the new ones. That’s
what being a storyteller is all about.
What's the best thing about being a writer?
Hey, perfect follow-up question! The best thing about being a writer is that
no two days are the same; hell, no two hours
are the same! You never know what’s
going to happen next—both good and bad, unfortunately. If you’re lucky and have achieved a
reasonable degree of success, the positive vastly outweighs the negative, but
it’s how you deal with that negative—the rejection and disappointment—that
determines how long you can really last.
Because, the thing is, rejection and disappointment never stops being
part of the process. That’s as
inevitable as it is systemic. You need
to be able to move on from disappointing sales, negative reviews, a project you
may not be able to place, etc. That’s
what makes you a professional and it’s part of the job. Just like being your own boss, having the
freedom to set your own schedule, to (hopefully) make a living at what you
absolutely love to do. I often tell
people that writing is the one profession you don’t choose—it chooses you. You are a writer because you can’t imagine
being anything else.
Why
do you think readers are going to enjoy your book?
Let me try to answer that without
sounding overly self-serving—notice I said, ‘try!’ First off, I feel anyone who enjoys thrillers
in general will love Strong Light of Day
in particular because it contains all the structural elements that accentuate
the genre at its very best. That what
has made Lee Child a major bestselling author and is Jack Reacher character a
true icon in the field.. In my humble opinion, the Caitlin Strong series
compares favorably to Lee’s books because essentially she’s a female version of
Reacher. A modern day gunfighter still
living with an Old West mentality. So if
you’re looking for a female action hero, Caitlin’s definitely your gal. But I’ve also patterned the series to a great
extent after the wonderful work done by James Lee Burke in his Dave Robicheaux
books. I say that because all the
Caitlin Strong books have a very strong emotional context and core. The recurring characters age, change, and
face new challenges in their personal lives. You care about them and that vests you in the
action all the more, creating much more suspense.
Who
designed the cover?
Wow, that’s a great question and I’m so glad somebody finally asked me it! The truth is I have very minimal involvement in my cover concept and design. There’s a designer who works for my publisher who’s come up with all my Caitlin Strong covers and, get this, he actually reads the very first draft of the book to a get a notion not only for the title’s subject matter but also its tone and subtext. The cover Strong Light of Day is a perfect example. We see my female Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong, viewed from behind, standing on a ridge or rock formation, gazing down a lonely road into the rising sun, the implication being that something is coming down that road she must stop. In essence, the entire mystery and feel of the book is right there in that graphic, and I think it’s drop dead brilliant.
What
inspires you?
Ah, the “I” word! After 38 books overall, and this being the
seventh in the Caitlin Strong series, I’m not sure inspiration is the right
word but let me try to apply it. My
inspiration is always to create a great story that’s different and better in
enough ways than all the other books that preceded it. In the case of Strong Light of Day, I had read this article in the New York Times about a genetically
enhanced pesticide that went terribly wrong.
All sorts of unintended consequences which got me thinking about
applying that on a massive scale. More
generally, I’m inspired by the desire, obsession even, to give people
the same experience my favorite
authors give me: Keep you up all night,
make your next airplane flight the best one you’ve ever had because you’re
reading my book, get you excited when you see my new book staring out at you
from a bookstore.
What
books or authors have most influenced your life?
Oh man,
I’d need a whole book to answer that but let me hit a few of the ones that
stand out the most: The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty because it was the first book
I read literally cover to cover in a single day. The
Stand (original, not the expanded version) by Stephen King because I missed
class while at Brown University because I just couldn’t put it down and had
chills the whole time I was reading it. The Holcroft Covenant and The Matarese Circle by Robert Ludlum
because these books more than any other made me want to write thrillers and I
think I spent the first few years of my career copying Ludlum as well as
King. Marathon Man by William Goldman because it’s as perfect a thriller
as has ever been written—I can actually recite passages from it I’ve read it so
much. Like I said, the list is endless,
but I’d like to finish with a more recent Stephen King title, Doctor Sleep which was the sequel to his
brilliant The Shining. I didn’t think a book could scare me anymore
but that one literally gave me nightmares and gave me the same feeling I got
when I read The Exorcist that rainy
Saturday afternoon when I was twelve or thirteen years old.
What
is your work in progress? Tell us about it.
As I mentioned, I literally just submitted my initial draft of the next
book in the Caitlin Strong series, Strong
Cold Dead, so there’s still lots of work to do on that one before it’s
ready to be published next fall. Before
that, though, March will see publication of my second nonfiction book Takedown, about a celebrated undercover
drug officer who comes out of retirement to battle the biggest drug gang in the
country (sounds like fiction, doesn’t it?).
And then in June the first in the series I’m doing with the great
Heather Graham, The Rising, will be
out. That’s the amazing thing about this
business. Here I’ve been doing it for
over thirty years and an opportunity like that comes up. You just never know what’s going to happen
next.
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Jo Linsdell
Jon Land
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1 Comments
Terrific interview! Always a pleasure reading about Jon's books. And glad to hear a new Caitlin Strong thriller in in the works!
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