0:00
Jack Carr is a master at writing thrillers.
Search this video
0:02
He's a former Navy SEAL turned author, and this is a guy who just loves books, loves storytelling.
0:09
So, he walks in and I'm like, "Hey, I want you to teach me how you write so visually.
0:12
You're so good at taking the minutia of combat and violence and writing about weapons in a way that just comes to life on the page.
0:18
How do you actually do that?"
0:20
And this is a guy whose method clearly works.
0:22
He's able to publish a new novel every year.
0:24
He's made a real business out of his writing.
0:28
And also, Amazon Prime took his book The Terminal List and turned it into an original series with Chris Pratt [music] as the star. You're a Navy SEAL.
0:36
You've had all these things that you've lived through, and then you take that, you put it into the book.
0:43
What are the advantages of doing that?
0:44
What are the disadvantages of doing that?
0:47
>> I don't know if there are too many disadvantages, especially today.
0:47
Maybe there were there were in the past.
0:49
Um, but today when authenticity rings so much more true and is so much more important to a uh consumer base, like they want to know the person behind said product.
0:59
It's not just about the product anymore, it doesn't seem.
1:01
Uh, they want to know the person behind it, and they want to get to know you, and uh they want to have a relationship essentially with you.
1:08
Uh, my mom was a librarian, so I grew up surrounded by books and a love of reading.
1:11
About 10 years old, fifth grade, is where I start moving from, let's say, the Farley Mowat type young adult fiction into the same kind of books my parents are reading.
1:18
That's the year that Hunt for Red October came out, and certainly by sixth grade, age 11, then I am reading all those kind of books.
1:24
So, I'm reading books by all the masters of the day.
1:26
So, Tom Clancy and Nelson DeMille and AJ Cronin and Jack Higgins, all like a Mark Olden and David Morrell, who created Rambo in 1970 in 1972's First Blood.
1:32
So, I'm reading all those at a time when I'm very impressionable.
1:36
So, I think there's something that you do.
1:37
If you start between age 8 and 18, let's say 10 and 20, something like that, it just imprints on your soul in a different way than if you did those exact same things at age 30 or at age 40.
1:46
But, uh point being, I'm reading all those books from the fan perspective.
1:50
I'm not thinking like, "Oh, when I get older, I'm going to I'm going to remember this, or I'm studying this so that when I get older I can write.
1:58
It was more that hey, age 10, certainly at age 11, I knew that after my time in the military I'd write thrillers and I'd write the same kind of thrillers that I'm enjoying reading back then.
2:08
And so I had that that foundation early on and I think not just the the books but film, television also all that the power of popular culture without all these distractions that the kids have today.
2:21
So I got to build that and I'm reading non-fiction at the same time.
2:24
I'm reading anything that I can find on warfare, on terrorism, on insurgencies, on counterinsurgencies.
2:27
I'm just reading anything I think is going to help me later in life in the the military side of things that I know is coming.
2:35
I'm going to test myself in this crucible called buds basic underwater demolition seal training.
2:38
All that reading fiction, all that reading non-fiction and then the practical application of essentially violence in Iraq and Afghanistan um all those things I can tap into.
2:49
Now that's all part of my experience.
2:50
So as I sit down to write and this is getting back to your actual question.
2:57
I can think about I can remember what it was like to be in an ambush in Baghdad in 2006.
3:01
I can remember what it was like to be a sniper in Ramadi in 2005, 2006 or being in Najaf in 2004, being in Afghanistan in 2003 or whatever.
3:07
I can remember what it was like.
3:10
I can remember the feelings and I can take those now and apply them to a completely fictional narrative.
3:14
So if my character like in The Terminal List he gets ambushed in in Los Angeles that I can remember what it was like to be ambushed in Baghdad and I can take those feelings and emotions and apply them directly to the narrative without having to find somebody that was in that situation, talk to them and then interview them and have those answers go through certain filters.
3:32
I think that was for me it's been been an advantage and even if someone doesn't know my background, I think just today that authenticity side of things rings so true to people. They recognize it.
3:41
And so even if they don't know that I was there they feel like I was there or my character was there because all those feelings are real and come from a real place.
3:50
>> I want to talk about that ambush.
3:50
Like, we're talking about ambush Los Angeles, ambush Baghdad.
3:54
So, as you're writing a series, just take me right to the to the center of it.
3:59
You're working on the series.
4:01
You're thinking to a specific scene, a specific paragraph.
4:03
Where does your brain go in terms of Baghdad ambush, Los Angeles ambush?
4:08
Let's bring that to life, make it real.
4:12
>> I mean, it's just exactly like you like you said right there.
4:13
So, I'm writing this thing and and James Reece, my protagonist, shows up in in Los Angeles and I need a way for him to not him to prove, but for the story to to play out in a way that the reporter that he is linked up with realizes that oh, this conspiracy could be real.
4:31
This isn't just in this guy's head. How do I do that?
4:32
Oh, there's an attempt on on his life with her right there.
4:36
So, so as I'm writing this, it's very natural.
4:38
Doesn't I don't it's it's not a thing where I have to like sit there for a while and I bring myself back to Baghdad.
4:44
It's nothing like that at all.
4:47
It's not it's not nearly it's not even close to that.
4:48
It's just uh I remember what it's like.
4:51
I remember sitting out there.
4:52
I remember trying to get permission to go into certain certain building that we weren't allowed to go into and and and at middle of the night and kind of remember those feelings of like why can't we just go in this this building?
5:02
Why can't we send our Iraqi counterparts into this building cuz they're a host nation force and they're not Americans and then the whole uh essentially that I shouldn't say part of the city, but sides of the road light up on us.
5:14
So, >> What I hear when you're saying that is you remember the strategy, the situation.
5:18
Where you could go, where you couldn't go.
5:20
What I thought you were going to say is I remember the heat, I remember the dust, but you're talking about the strategy, the situation.
5:24
Like, that's the core thing.
5:27
>> Yeah, cuz it probably would have been prevented had we been able to just act immediately, but um because of certain sensitivities around certain sites, we couldn't just just act.
5:33
So, yeah, I just remember what it was like, you know, I don't have to bring myself back.
5:37
I don't have to like meditate or like something.
5:41
There's no There's no cold sweats involved or anything like that. It's just very natural.
5:44
It's like any experience.
5:45
Like, if you're writing about anything.
5:47
If you used to be a car dealer and now you're writing about somebody buying a car in a book, uh you remember what what that experience was like with your with the customer and the sale and all of that and you just bring it into a a fictional narrative.
5:55
So, in the that's the same way except in this one just bullets were flying, but it's uh it's very similar.
6:02
>> Tell me about the executive summary that you do.
6:04
>> Yeah, so first book I wrote down.
6:04
This is December of 2014 and I know I'm getting out of the military in about a year and a half or so, 2 years, something like that.
6:10
And uh and so, I start writing down and I wasn't writing when I was in the military.
6:15
I was focused on being the best leader operator I possibly could be, but I was still reading.
6:18
So, just like I had my whole life, still reading fictions, still reading non-fictions, still studying the enemy, doing all those things.
6:24
Um but I get [clears throat] to December of 2014 and I'm not taking guys down range anymore and I'm moving out from here.
6:30
I'm getting out of the military from there.
6:31
So, uh I wrote down six, seven, eight, nine, maybe even 10 different ideas, one-page executive summaries, some two paragraphs, some four, some a page and a half, but something like that.
6:39
And uh put them all down on the kitchen table and I just looked at them.
6:43
And there was one I wanted to start with and that's Savage Son, my third novel.
6:46
And that's because in the sixth grade I read Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell, which is a short story from the 1920s.
6:51
And I told myself back in the sixth grade that one day I would write a thriller that paid tribute to that short story and that was Savage Son.
6:59
But I knew that the characters weren't developed enough to be able to explore those themes, dark side of man through the dynamic of hunter and hunted, and I had to build up to that.
7:09
So, I thought List, very clear to me. This is this is the one.
7:14
Uh so, I took that and then I heard Steven Pressfield and I I Gates of Fire, Hero of Gates of Fire, Legend of Bagger Vance, has a uh series of books on creativity that starts with The War of Art.
7:24
Incredible guy, dear friend now.
7:26
But I heard him say something uh that I misinterpreted and uh what I thought he said and I forget, I think it might have been on Rogan, I forget, but he said that he had a one-word uh that one word that would guide the theme of his novels and he'd write it down on a yellow sticky, put it next to his typewriter.
7:46
I think he was talking about, you know, older older books before he had a word processor and then a computer.
7:51
But, I that was my takeaway.
7:53
One word, a theme that keeps him on track, check.
7:56
So, I put revenge and then I added revenge without constraint. That's my theme.
8:01
That's going to guide this writing process.
8:02
And then years later when I got to know him and he became a friend, he told me that's not the story.
8:08
Uh the story what he did say is there was a playwright in New York who would have a couple sentences that would explain the theme of his play and that he put next to his typewriter.
8:18
And so, for some reason, I don't know how I got to Stephen Pressfield and one word, but I did and it was very helpful.
8:24
So, uh so first one out of the gate with this few words here, revenge without constraint, I had a title, The Terminal List, right away and then I had this one-page executive summary.
8:34
So, that's the that's the start and that's how I've done all of them >> since.
8:37
So, what's on the executive summary? What am I seeing?
8:39
Is it like the back of a jacket?
8:43
>> Yeah, it's like the back of a paperback or the inside cover of a of a hard cover and but longer.
8:47
David Morrell right does something similar.
8:50
He writes himself a letter.
8:51
So, mine's not a letter to myself, his is, but the the idea is the same.
8:56
Meaning, I write this one page and I read it and I say, is this worth the next year year and a half of my life?
9:03
And if the answer is yes, then I read it again and I say, if someone was to read something similar to this in the front flap of a hard cover on the back of a paperback as they're walking to their plane and they pull a book off the shelf in Hudson News and they read that, would that be enough for them to want to invest time in that they're never going to get back?
9:19
Is the story intriguing enough for someone to spend time in that they know they're never going to get back?
9:25
And if the answer is yes or probably, then that's the that's the story and I take that one-page executive summary, build that out into an outline, and then I take that outline and turn that into the narrative.
9:34
So, that's what I've done from the very beginning and it seems to seems to work for me and I think everybody's going to have a different process but that one's been that one's been working for me.
9:43
>> Look at this, first line of the preface.
9:46
This is a novel of revenge.
9:46
The Terminal List explores what could happen when an apex predator, a warrior at the top of his game, is thrown into a situation from which there is no return.
9:55
Like that is the kind of thing that you're seeing in the executive summary.
9:59
Is that evolving over time as you're writing the book?
10:03
>> No, the executive summary pretty much get it discarded for the outline and then the outline evolves as I continue to to think through different ideas, figure out what's going to happen at each of these different parts, primarily the three-part books.
10:14
There's like one or two that are four, maybe even five parts but I like having a prologue, I like having an epilogue, I like having a preface where I kind of set up like I did right there with what someone's what's going to happen.
10:26
My fourth book, The Devil's Hand, I started doing an author's note at the end because I was getting so many questions about, hey what of out of this book that I just read, what was real, what wasn't and so I started explaining some of that in the author's note at the end.
10:38
>> What's good about three parts?
10:40
>> I think there's just something about a three-part play.
10:41
I think that three parts in a TV show or a television show, there's just something about threes that resonates with people and it just seems that the the books naturally fall into to three acts.
10:51
Not all of my cuz there's one or two that that are a little different but three acts seems to be three parts seems to be to work well for me and I think it's probably because of all the books that I read growing up, I think most of them probably fell into something similar, not all of them but probably all of them fell into something similar and it just imprinted on me that early age.
11:14
>> When you think of school, what comes to mind?
11:15
For me, it was lectures, homework, sitting at a desk and the worst part is it doesn't even work.
11:22
54% of Americans read below a sixth grade level.
11:25
That's over half of Americans.
11:28
We We something new and that's why I'm excited to have Alpha School as the flagship sponsor for How I Write.
11:36
At Alpha, you go to school and do all your academics in only 2 hours per day, so that then you can spend the rest of the day learning life skills like launching a business, writing a musical, or giving a TED Talk.
11:45
You know, [music] the kind of things that make you a capable and well-rounded person. And it's working.
11:51
They have academics figured out.
11:54
Alpha classes test in the top 1% nationally, and more than 90% of Alpha students say they love school.
12:01
Now, I used to live in Austin, where Alpha School started, and I was consistently blown away with what was happening [music] there.
12:07
I personally mentored a bunch of Alpha students, and what stood out to me is how much the team believes in the potential of kids, way more than what I ever got in school.
12:17
Alpha's approach and the success it's already having is why it's most talked about K-12 school in the world right now.
12:23
And it's also where I want to send my kids to school one day.
12:25
So, if you want to learn more, go to go. alpha.
12:28
school/howiwri If you were to basically read, review one of your own books, and you're just ready to send it off to the publisher, you got a little checklist.
12:40
Check this: suspense, thrilling, uh, funny, you know, whatever it is, good character.
12:46
Like, what would the three five things on the checklist be?
12:48
Like, if I have these things, I feel like I'm going to have a book that I'm proud of.
12:53
>> I don't do it really like that.
12:53
Uh, for me, it's all story.
12:55
Um, and I never think about, "Hey, are short chapters long chapters?
12:59
What's more palatable to a readership these days?
13:01
Uh, if I say something like this, is it going to alienate anybody?" Never. Never.
13:05
Uh, "Oh, someone needs to said this about the last book.
13:09
I should probably take that advice." Nope.
13:11
Uh, it is all about the story.
13:13
And, uh, for me, if it's all about the story, I haven't made any sort of concessions to, "Oh, people only like short chapters. You got to do that now.
13:21
Oh, I have to have these shorter sentences for whatever reason, cuz Hemingway did it, or, um, Um, people don't like long sentences."
13:25
Like, nope, none of that.
13:27
It is all just about that story.
13:30
And if I put my heart and soul into that story, and I feel like I'm honoring that readership that's trusting me with their time.
13:35
And like I said before, they're never getting that back.
13:37
So, that's something that I that I'm uh I take very seriously.
13:40
And uh so, for me, it's all about story.
13:42
There's not a I don't have a don't have a checklist.
13:43
I know that process that works for me. So, uh so, I trust that.
13:47
And of course, I'm all always evolve if there's a way that I can be more effective or efficient.
13:52
But, uh but that seems to work for me thus far.
13:54
And uh and I just let me get it all about the story.
13:58
>> And then you go from the executive summary to an outline, right?
13:59
And what's that outline like?
14:02
>> That outline is different um because it's uh it's subjective from my perspective.
14:07
Meaning, I'll get it to a point where I'm happy with it, and I know there's gaps.
14:11
But, I don't want to spend a month trying to figure out one gap cuz I know over the course of the year as I'm writing this thing, I'll figure that out.
14:18
This is not a uh firefight in Iraq or Afghanistan where I have to make a split-second decision that's going to affect everyone around me. I can sleep on it.
14:24
So, I never let myself get held up by any sort of a a gap or a problem or something I can't solve in the outline.
14:31
Um I know I'll have time to do that.
14:33
So, if I get to a point where, okay, I know how it's going to start in this prologue.
14:36
I know what I'm setting up here.
14:38
I know the first part uh introduce these new characters, uh this problem set in this this middle part uh is going to have X, Y, or Z.
14:44
And then here we go, sprint to the finish with this third part, and then wrap up the epilogue in a way that is enough resolution for that reader uh that they're not left with a cliffhanger.
14:54
Um unless that's the intent, unless I introduce something new.
14:58
But, it's that resolution from that time they've invested thus far in this in this story.
15:04
So, the art of it is kind of like the art of leadership or something like that.
15:07
You can't really put your finger on it, but you know that there's enough resolution, but you also know that most people will want the next book >> Right.
15:15
>> because of X, Y, or Z.
15:15
So, so, that's how I that's how I go through it.
15:17
And and uh and I love it.
15:19
I love every part of that process.
15:21
>> How do you think of the development of the story over time?
15:23
Right, the same character over and over again and having that character develop and evolve and change and grow, whatever it is, but also keeping things consistent from book to book.
15:34
>> A lot of people do have Bibles where they have a character and they go and they can flip to it with the description and it's all right there so you're not going back through other books and be like, "Ah, I didn't say it in this book. It was this one."
15:44
But after this point, I have all my books with me as I'm writing primarily and so I can go, "Ah, but I have to go to that book."
15:48
So once I get above like, uh this is the 10th book but it's a new new series and one of those 10 is non-fiction so there's eight in the James Reece and Tom Reece now Terminal List series.
15:58
So I think one or two more of that I'm going to have to come up with this all over this Bible to make sure that things are consistent and I'm not making glaring errors like giving people the wrong wrong name or, you know, eye color is a small one but for a lot of characters for for your protagonist it can be it's uh the description of the eyes I think is very important for a for a protagonist or even for some of those supporting characters.
16:17
But um but I love to get to know the characters. I know James Reece.
16:21
Uh now I know Chris Walker from this book.
16:23
I know Jared Stanton as the FBI agent in this new book.
16:25
But what I don't know when I started James Reece's book uh are the other characters because usually he's killed everybody off uh in the in the in the last book so I have to create new characters.
16:34
And I know who they are so I know like so-and-so is going to be uh let's say uh the head of the KGB.
16:39
So-and-so is going to be uh an assassin or who I like I know the what the part they're going to play in the story but I don't know them and I don't know them until I put them in conversation with each other in the book.
16:52
>> The conversation, the events, they reveal your own characters to yourself.
16:57
>> Yes, they reveal the they like I said, I know who who they are and how they move the story forward but I don't know them.
17:03
You know, like I know I might know your job.
17:04
I might have a little picture of you but I don't know you until we sit down and we talk.
17:08
We have a beer together or coffee together or something like that.
17:10
Uh so for me I'm now getting to know these characters through conversation which is a very natural way obviously to get to know somebody.
17:16
So, I get to do that with my my characters in the books, and I I really like that, and so much comes out of that for me.
17:24
Um but when I come up with the characters' names, they all have to be a little different.
17:28
Very difficult with Russian names.
17:29
They can't have They can't sound the same.
17:31
So, many people listen to audiobooks today, like they can't rhyme with one another.
17:34
Uh they can't look the same, even if they're different names.
17:38
You got to differentiate them not just by uh how they talk or their backgrounds, but by their how their name looks or sounds, as well.
17:46
So, uh but I love doing that part of it.
17:48
And And sometimes you get to know a character you but flat put a placeholder in, and I'll I'm going to change this character's name later.
17:52
This isn't a good one, but I'll just put it in I'll put in like a friend's name or something.
17:56
I get to know that character as that name, and then it's very hard for me to change it.
17:59
Often times I don't, because I've now over the course of a year gotten to know this person as, you know, said name.
18:04
But uh but if it works and it doesn't look like another person's name in the book, doesn't sound like it, doesn't rhyme, then that's uh that's important, too.
18:10
But it's it's it's fun for me to develop these characters through conversation.
18:14
>> You talked about the eyes.
18:14
Why are the eyes so important?
18:16
>> It must come from the books that I read growing up.
18:18
It must have uh come from other authors, I would I would suspect.
18:22
Um but they're also the gateway to the soul, of course. So, you have that.
18:23
Um and then you to figuring out how to describe something other than like brown hair, okay?
18:30
Well, how What's a better way to describe that, you know?
18:31
Is there Is there a way to describe Is there a little ash on the sides or you describe it like a a field a field of wheat or something like that?
18:39
Or uh there's a new way to describe these green, okay?
18:42
Well, how do you do that a little differently?
18:46
Even emerald, okay, overused.
18:46
Uh how do I describe it uh in terms of something outside?
18:50
I think it's it's good to have a a character like a main character that's uh that people know and has certain attributes and physical attributes as as well.
18:56
But you don't want to over-describe, because if you everyone's going to have a different idea of a room with white walls, Hemingway star.
19:04
Okay, that's specific right there. Fireplace.
19:06
So, if we say white walls, fireplace, Hemingway star, we have specific there, but everybody else is going to bring their personal experience to what a fireplace looks like, to what white walls look like, to what the bookcases look like.
19:18
And oftentimes I find that's a good way to go because someone's bringing usually a a fond experience to that.
19:25
And now they're in this room and they're remembering a fireplace they had growing up or a bookshelf that they saw in somebody's house or a shade of white that they like to have in their own or something along those lines, but they're all going to be a bit different.
19:36
So, if you describe it too much, um you're missing out on that person being able to bring their personal experience and life experience to the story.
19:46
So, there's a So, I go back and forth between those two things as I'm going through it through the book.
19:50
As I'm writing it, I'll think, "Oh, you know what?
19:52
I described something pretty with a lot of detail here in this last chapter.
19:55
Now, I'm going to do something a little less detailed that lets the reader bring their own personal life experience to the story."
20:03
>> How is character different when you're working on the Amazon series versus writing the book?
20:09
What do you feel like you gain on video?
20:13
What do you gain in a book?
20:14
>> It's a completely different medium, obviously.
20:17
I really like writing the novels because it's just on me and whether someone loves it or hates it, there's no one else to blame.
20:22
Even my publisher and and uh editor agent, they give no advice on where to go next or what I did They don't even ask me what I'm doing, which is great.
20:31
So, it's 100% complete creative control. Uh Amazon, not so much.
20:35
It is every single word goes up to the top of Amazon for notes and then all the way back down.
20:42
And all those notes have to It's a group It's a team effort.
20:44
It is certainly a team effort.
20:45
I mean, hundreds of people involved. 350 people on set.
20:51
Um and you know, the writing phase, those are evolving as we go because you have a an actor come in and they bring something to that written word that you didn't expect when you're sitting in a nice air-conditioned room writing away.
21:02
Kind of like a plan in the military.
21:03
It's a you're you're planning in this nice air-conditioned room.
21:05
When when it out there on the battlefield, it's a little different. The enemy gets a vote.
21:09
In this case, uh uh in that first series, Taylor Kitsch, and even in the writer's room, the uh the the character that Taylor Kitsch plays, Ben Edwards, was so much better than it was in my book.
21:18
They did such a better job with it.
21:19
And then when Taylor showed up on set, and what he brought to it, and brought this empathy and compassion to this character that really, you know, the didn't really exist in his in his character in the book, uh it was just amazing, which is why we got a spin-off called called Dark Wolf, which is uh uh came out last August, and it was just it was fantastic.
21:34
We wouldn't have had that without the writer's room doing what they did, and then without Taylor Kitsch bringing what he brought to it, so um it's uh it's a team definitely a team sport.
21:44
And for us it helps that we uh we evolve as we go, and uh the actors ad-lib, and some some some productions don't allow that.
21:53
You have to say exactly what's on the page, just get there, just say your lines, and then move on.
21:58
Uh and ours is not really like that.
22:00
We uh we want the the actors to bring to know these characters, to become these characters, to bring their life experience to them, and uh uh and elevate the their performance, and then the show uh through that as well.
22:12
So, it's uh it's it's very different, very different mediums.
22:16
>> Do you have mantras that you come back to as you're writing?
22:17
Things that we're talking about theme in the press field.
22:21
Do you have mantras that you think about that sort of keep you on track? >> Yep.
22:26
Yep, there's one, and it's uh it's give yourself permission to write a bad chapter. >> Huh. >> And I like that one.
22:33
Give yourself permission to write a bad sentence, give yourself permission to write a bad chapter, give yourself permission to write a bad book, and then go back and make it great.
22:39
Like just get it out there.
22:41
I think a lot of people get stalled out, kind of like with that outline.
22:44
If I stopped with how is he going to get out of this cave in China, I spent a week like stewing over that and figuring that out.
22:48
No, no, no, that you just wasted a week.
22:51
Just keep going, get through that outline, and then when you start writing, you will figure this out.
22:55
You're smart enough to figure this out.
22:56
Type of a type of a thing.
22:56
So, giving yourself permission not get stuck, You that first line of a book, or whatever it might be and think, "Ah, that's not a great line.
23:03
Ah, it's not as good as X, Y, or Z."
23:05
You start comparing yourself.
23:06
You start overthinking it, whatever. Hey, move on.
23:11
Get that sentence out there. Keep going.
23:12
You can always go back and change it.
23:13
Then, just get it out there.
23:15
>> I was on a walk with a friend yesterday and he said, "Man, you know, you've done all these interviews.
23:19
What do you feel like you've learned about writing?"
23:22
So, I start to scratch my head.
23:22
I'm like, "I don't really know."
23:27
And I ended up saying to him, "I'm not sure that you can learn anything better than at the end of the day you just need to sit down and just write." >> Do the job.
23:37
>> You just need to do the job and then you can always revise.
23:40
And you revise and you revise and you revise.
23:42
And at the end of the day, there's just a level of sweat and discipline that goes into every single good writer.
23:50
>> You got to sit down and do it. That's for sure.
23:52
But, Steven Pressfield also has that great in one of his books.
23:58
A Turning Pro, I think it is.
24:00
And in that one he talks about, "Hey, you're a professional. You sit down and write."
24:02
The dentist doesn't get dentist block.
24:04
A truck driver doesn't get truck driver's block.
24:05
You sit down and you write. You're professional.
24:08
Most important part is thinking of yourself as a professional.
24:11
If you want to be a writer, you're it's not a hobby. It's it's a profession.
24:15
It's like the profession of arms.
24:16
And I think there's a difference between profession and career.
24:19
I never thought of myself as a a career soldier, sailor, whatever, special operator.
24:26
It was always a profession.
24:26
And it's the profession of arms.
24:27
That's different than a career.
24:29
There are people who think of it as a career.
24:31
And if you've read Once an Eagle by Anton Myrer, that is a fantastic book that that talks about that a little bit in there.
24:39
It's part of the theme of that book.
24:40
The difference between a profession and a career essentially.
24:42
So, I think this is a profession as well.
24:46
So, I've never thought of I never had a career in anything.
24:48
I've always had a profession. >> Mhm.
24:51
>> And I think there's a there's a difference there.
24:52
But, but be a professional. Sit down and do the job.
24:56
And the danger today is that there are so many people giving advice on writing and so many rabbit holes you can go down.
25:02
You can study how to do something, not just writing, but anything forever.
25:07
Until the end of time you can study how to do something and you can make everyone else rich by buying their book on how to do whatever.
25:14
Um eventually, whatever that thing is, in my case it's writing, you got to sit down and write.
25:17
And so I did read um on writing by Stephen King.
25:20
I did read The Successful Novelist by David Morrell.
25:23
I did read however many Steven Pressfield creativity books were out when I started.
25:26
There's more out now and I've read them all. They're all fantastic.
25:29
You can read them as you know in you know in an hour or so. Um so they're fantastic.
25:32
So I did that and that was it.
25:34
Then it was like, okay, time to write.
25:35
I got to sit down and do this.
25:38
>> What did you learn from David Morrell?
25:39
>> Well, I mean I as a fan uh I he was part of >> Like of his books, not his how-to book. >> Yeah, his books. Yeah. His his books.
25:45
So Brotherhood of the Rose, Fraternity of the Stone, League of Night and Fog where he takes the uh back in the '80s took the best of um US spy fiction with the Ludlum type books at the time and the best of UK spy fiction, so Le Carré at the time, and combined both of those together to recreate something new, move the genre forward.
26:04
And uh so >> Why do you use those words, move the genre forward?
26:08
>> Because if you're not, you're just doing what others have done essentially, but you're telling that story in your own words, but you're not moving it forward.
26:15
So there's certain books out there that have moved the genre forward.
26:17
The short story I talked about earlier, Most Dangerous Game.
26:21
Um there is uh Rogue Male written on the eve of World War II, 1939.
26:23
Uh another classic that moved the genre forward.
26:28
First Blood moves the genre forward.
26:31
Uh The Spy Who Came in from the Cold moves the genre forward.
26:32
The Sierra Leone moves the genre forward.
26:36
Brotherhood of the Rose moves the genre forward.
26:37
Term Limits, Vince Flynn moves the genre forward.
26:39
Uh but they're very, you know, they come every 5 years, 10 years, maybe 15 years, but you can go back and certainly look at those books that uh that did that, that didn't just tell another spy story, but they were different for whatever reason and they moved the genre forward.
26:53
They wouldn't just kind of recreate what's already been done, but they did something a little bit different even if it was just by a degree.
27:01
So, that's always my my goal is to always do something that I want the next book to be better than this one.
27:06
The goal is for every book to be better than the last one.
27:08
For the next TV show to be better than than the last one.
27:09
On the SEAL teams, I wanted to be a better leader and better operators today than I was yesterday.
27:14
Today, I want to be a better author than I was yesterday.
27:17
Personally, I want to be a better citizen, husband, father today than I was yesterday.
27:20
So, for me it's always about improvement, but that's what I think the readers expected or trusted me with that time.
27:26
They were expecting not just the same, but better because we're moving through life.
27:31
We should be taking the lessons of the past and applying them to our current problems. That is wisdom.
27:35
We should be getting better at whatever we're doing, whatever our profession is.
27:39
You don't want to get a worse time in your next like 10K run or whatever your thing is, you know?
27:41
You want to be better by a second or two type of a thing.
27:44
So, I want the next book to be to be better.
27:46
So, it's all about constant improvement for me.
27:49
>> Move the genre forward implies that you know about the genre.
27:51
So, my assumption there is you got to go back in time in order to move the genre forward. >> Oh, yeah.
27:59
You got to know the history of of your genre.
28:00
There's no no doubt about that.
28:02
It's it is extremely beneficial to know the history of the genre.
28:05
I'm always shocked how sometimes when I meet authors that that don't know the history of of their genre. Extremely beneficial.
28:12
You have to know what came before so you can build upon it.
28:16
So, you're aware of it so you can honor those who went before who now you who who essentially opened the door for you.
28:21
So, that is important to know the history of whatever you're doing, whatever your profession is.
28:25
It's just to know what what came before.
28:27
It's just and I makes sense.
28:27
Certainly in the military it does.
28:30
Like you have to take the lessons of the past cuz it's cuz if you don't, then people are going to die.
28:34
You're going to learn those lessons again in blood.
28:37
Maybe not so important in other professions maybe, but but in a lot of professions sure it's serious.
28:43
But I just take that same mindset and apply it to to writing.
28:47
>> As you're working on great stories, are you thinking about how do I make this thrilling?
28:52
How do I make it suspenseful?
28:53
How do I make it gripping?
28:53
Or do you feel like you just have this intuitive sense of something else that leads to a great story?
28:59
>> Yeah, I don't think about those things.
29:01
I think about I think about the story itself.
29:02
So, those parts are just part of it.
29:05
It's just a very natural process. But, I have the guide.
29:07
I have the the one-page executive summary.
29:09
I have the theme, um which is important because it keeps me on track because book here for the first one here.
29:16
So, Revenge Without Constraint.
29:17
Uh it doesn't mean that everything has to be directly tied to that.
29:21
Everything has to be directly or indirectly tied to that.
29:23
So, the indirectly part is the is the part that uh allows you to tell the great story, to be guided by that theme, not um it's not not not beholden to it, but guided by it.
29:36
>> And why is theme so important to be guided by?
29:39
>> So, otherwise, I think well, for me anyway, it keeps me on track.
29:41
So, I'm not writing along and then all of a sudden I'll I'll give this idea to do this with the story and here we go. Oh, that didn't work.
29:47
Oh, then I come back and I keep going here. Oh, what if this?
29:50
And then go, no, bring it back.
29:50
So, it just keeps me on track the entire time. So, for me it's helpful.
29:55
For those it might not be, but uh for me I find it extremely beneficial.
29:58
I still write it down on a on a yellow sticky.
30:02
>> I want to get into how you describe things.
30:04
So, what I did is I printed out the beginning of chapter three of In the Blood. >> Oh, nice.
30:08
>> If you want to talk about this, we can go for it.
30:09
All right, you want to read it?
30:10
I think it might be my one of my favorite chapters.
30:12
I think there's a couple in uh >> True in uh uh Cry Havoc and in uh Red Sky Morning.
30:17
That's uh there seems like there's like one or two chapters each book that really stand out to me.
30:22
And most people would think those would be some like battle sequence or things blowing up or or whatever else, but often times it's just uh it's just conversations.
30:29
And uh this is a conversation here.
30:32
>> Before you read this, what I want people to listen for is the level of detail and the texture of the writing.
30:36
And then I want to end up talking about how you achieve that.
30:41
>> Uh so, right here, Reese observed. >> Yes, sir.
30:43
>> Reese observed the trail dust as the faded mustard-colored 70s-era FJ40 Land Cruiser descended toward the cabin.
30:48
He stood on the front porch to welcome his guest, the matriarch, and quite possibly the toughest member of the Hastings clan, Rafe's mom, Caroline.
30:57
She stepped from the vehicle, a wide-brimmed restaurant hat felt hat with a grosgrain band and a feather shading it for her face.
31:03
A red bandana protected her neck from the sun.
31:05
Now in her mid-60s, she appreciated her mother's insistence that she take those precautions under the African sun, habits Caroline had passed along to her daughters.
31:15
So, yeah, you'll learn a lot about her there, I think.
31:17
You know, you know she's from Africa.
31:19
You know, you learn a little bit about her mom, a little bit about the history.
31:21
And without saying she was beautiful, you have a sense that this is a beautiful woman in her 60s cuz she's taken taken care of herself, but she's also rugged at the same time because of what she's driving and where she is.
31:36
>> Tell me about what objects can do to bring a character to life.
31:41
>> Well, for me it did the same thing and when I see anybody, like when someone drives up in a in a car, okay, what are they driving up in?
31:48
It tells you a lot about who they are. >> FJ40 Land Cruiser.
31:51
>> got the FJ40, which happens to be one of my Land Cruisers. I like 70s-era.
31:55
Yeah, yeah, yeah, 78 FJ40, which I which I love.
31:59
But I mostly drive around FJ62 like James Reese in the in the Terminal List and the 80 series, which is the 90s era Land Cruiser.
32:06
So I'm a I'm a big big Land Cruiser fan, but if I see somebody, let's say it's we'll talk weaponry.
32:11
So see somebody and they step into a let's say a let's say I'm in a gun store or whatever and I see somebody step in and they're in in in jeans and they're in a leather belt and a leather holster and a cocked and locked 1911 and they have a something on their hat that I recognize and maybe sunglasses, okay, that tells me a lot about them.
32:29
me a lot about them. See somebody else, maybe they're a little bit younger than that, they're in flip-flops, still in jeans perhaps, um, on their t-shirt, okay, that tells me something, different kind of hat, got that, okay, Gator sunglasses, okay,
32:42
check tattoos down the arms, okay, that's something right there, uh, net nylon belt, uh, Kydex holster, striker fire pistol, like all those things tell me something about that era, the training they've had, um, but it tells a story about them without with just me seeing them for less than a second. Um, so I do the same
32:57
Um, so I do the same thing in the books.
32:59
I use, um, and Fleming did this too.
33:01
He was maybe he was one of the first to do it, really describe, uh, product in books, like the products that Bond used and he liked, um, uh, to help create that character.
33:09
So I do something something similar with my characters because it's just very natural for me to to look at someone and what they're wearing, what they're using, what they drive tells me a lot about them, tells me a story about them without even having to have a conversation.
33:21
So I do the same thing in the books because, uh, a lot of people that read these books, uh, are are firefighters, police officers, military, um, and, uh, it tells them a story, too.
33:30
So it's, uh, it's just when you come from that world, they're little indicators that, uh, that that that tell you the story.
33:37
>> Yeah, I think Bond always had the Vesper Martini.
33:39
>> Well, he did he did in, uh, in the films, but in the books he actually in the book he has, uh, a few different he has beer, champagne, uh, there is a Vesper Martini in there, but, uh, but he he drinks a lot of different things in the in the >> Well, you can tell a lot about somebody based on even just the kind of Martini they order and how they order it.
33:55
>> And the Vesper Martini, I mean, let's be honest, it's not a great Martini.
33:58
>> Tell me about the Vickers guides for describing things.
34:01
>> Yeah, they're my first stop.
34:01
So Vickers guides, uh, Larry Vickers, former Delta Force guy, um, and then, uh, James Rupley, uh, they he takes the photos.
34:09
He takes some amazing photos.
34:11
>> The photography is awesome.
34:11
And just to the guides, they pulled some names, early years of the AR-15, 1911 handgun variants, traces traces the history of SIG handgun and submachine gun development.
34:24
Yo, this is this is the stuff.
34:28
>> Like in describing the photos are so good that I can look at those photos cuz if I don't have said firearm, I like most of the time I like to have the firearm I'm describing, but oftentimes that's that's not possible.
34:36
So, those would be my first stop if I'm describing something.
34:39
I want to make sure that it when it's it speaks to the character.
34:42
Like, there's so many AKs out there.
34:42
So, AK variants, AKMs, and uh if I want to describe one that makes sense for a certain character like I do in The Devil's Hand, my fourth book.
34:50
Uh there's some great photos of one uh an Iraqi type a variant that's uh distinctive looking through its markings and through its stock.
34:58
And so, for me to be able to look at those photos and then describe it and put it in this book and comes in near the end of The Devil's Hand.
35:03
And uh and then I take those and I send those paragraphs uh and send them to James Rupley who looks over them.
35:09
And cuz he's been taking photos of these things for so long for those Vickers guidebooks.
35:14
And then he can give me some pointers or let me know if I messed anything up.
35:15
So, um he's one of my one of my beta readers that I thank in the back of uh of all the books.
35:20
But, those are fantastic.
35:20
And there's I think I don't think I'm breaking any news here if I say this, but Watches of Espionage and they they uh they have announced this already, I'm pretty sure. If not, sorry, guys.
35:28
Um but, there's a Watches of Espionage uh book coming out soon.
35:33
And and uh he took my um uh my Sea-Dweller watch from the the early '80s.
35:38
And I wrote a a little story about it.
35:40
And it's going to be in there.
35:42
But, it's about military watches, watches from intelligence professionals, that sort of thing.
35:46
>> What makes a military watch different?
35:48
>> Well, it's all your specific unit watches by era.
35:49
So, this is a Tudor from 1968 right here.
35:52
So, that's in the the fourth option.
35:54
This comes into into play.
35:56
My last book, there's a Rolex Submariner that I also have that's from um uh from 1968.
36:00
Uh the Sea-Dweller is my personal one that that I write about in this book.
36:04
That But, my point was that James Rupley takes those photos.
36:07
So, he took the watch, took all those photos.
36:08
So, the same kind of photos that he took in the Vickers guides of all those weapons, he's now doing it with watches for this Watches of Espionage coffee table book that'll be coming out in the next year or two.
36:16
So, it's uh it's that's pretty cool.
36:20
>> Tell me about your notebooks.
36:22
>> Each book gets a notebook.
36:22
Each book gets a notebook.
36:24
Each book gets a notebook.
36:25
>> And what's in that notebook? How often you it in? You travel with it? >> Travel with it.
36:28
Um Um now it's uh for this one because somebody gave me I won't I got a uh for going to Vietnam I got a a gift from somebody but it's clearly stamped with a an agency of the United States government that if they if they was I going to communist Vietnam even though the economy is very very capitalist.
36:44
I I didn't want to have get pulled into a secondary type of a screening because of the stamp on this on this thing.
36:49
So I had my wife just buy me little Mead notebooks that I that we used back in grade school.
36:54
So I just that's why I took a bunch of those with me on this trip and now those have turned into the the the notebooks that I'm using for for this current book that I'm writing James Reece number eight that hopefully will be out around this time in next year.
37:09
I need to get back to writing it.
37:09
But every book gets its own and it's just where I at night when I have an idea if I'm on a plane I don't have my computer whatever whatever it is that I can I can take notes and think and kind of write things out scratch things out sketch whatever whatever it is but it's associated with just that book and then once I'm done with that book then that goes away and goes in a drawer and I'll have a new fresh notebook and I do the same with computers.
37:34
I get a new computer for every book.
37:36
I'm sure there are better ways and more cost effective ways to do this but I feel like that's a a starting afresh for each for each book so so I'm not distracted by things from the other books that are on there and I have this one computer that is just for writing the book.
37:50
So I have one for business and whatever else over here but then I have one computer that doesn't have any of those email addresses nothing else pops up on it.
37:57
It is connected to the internet just so that word can update but then I have an email address also that's just for that computer that no one else has that I can send myself notes and so I don't have to sift through a bunch of bunch of junk mail to get to like I swear I sent myself a good idea you know last night on this thing what was that?
38:16
Scroll scroll scroll where is it?
38:16
Nope it's right there and there's nothing else in there except for notes to myself about the next book.
38:21
So, I try to minimize those distractions.
38:22
I I like when there's Yeah, no interruptions. It had That's the key. I don't need the view.
38:29
I don't need anything else.
38:31
I can write anywhere as long as there are no distractions, which is hard to come by with three kids, dog, wife, chaos constantly.
38:36
So, it's Anyway, it's fun. It's fun.
38:41
>> You seem to be very deliberate about separating the business side of writing with the writing side of writing.
38:51
Once again, just coming back to my job is to write books.
38:53
You know, there's going to be other things like social media, podcasts like this.
38:56
But, talk to me about how you go about doing that.
39:00
>> Well, yeah, there's a lot of gray area and because of all the distractions that are out there for everybody else.
39:05
And you're up against essentially the most powerful countries in the history of the planet that are keeping people from reading, that are keeping people from putting any deep thought into something because their algorithms are keeping you either in rage or they know exactly what to send you.
39:20
I mean, they know what to send me.
39:20
It's watches and Land Cruisers.
39:20
Like they that they know. They got it, you know.
39:24
They know what to feed me.
39:27
And they But they know how to do to feed every individual person almost on the planet.
39:31
>> We're all at war with some attention adversary. >> Right. So, I would love it.
39:35
Part of the part of the allure of writing when I was a kid was that I thought I could just go live in the mountains and write a book and send it to New York and then start on the next one.
39:46
Maybe do one morning show. And that's it.
39:47
That was my vision of what it was like.
39:50
No employees, nobody really above me, just solo.
39:56
Very introverted by nature.
39:56
I think I had to teach myself to be extroverted in the SEAL Teams to be heard, that kind of thing.
40:01
But, I would rather just just read and write.
40:04
But, very just like you have to adapt on the battlefield and you can't fight the last war.
40:11
I looked at publishing as I was getting into it and realized that this is not 1985.
40:15
As much as I would love it to be, it is not.
40:17
And uh so I need to adapt to a changing environment. What does that mean?
40:21
Well, I need to um engage with an audience.
40:23
I need to build an audience.
40:25
I need to I essentially thought of it as, "Hey, this is 1977.
40:29
I'm building a computer in my garage."
40:31
So, I'm building the product and now I have to tell people why they need it.
40:34
Um and so I have to do I have to be the CEO, the CFO, the CMO, the the if there was a social media manager back then, you have to do all those things as a single one person.
40:42
Now, I have some people to help with some of that, um but uh certainly for the the first 5, 6, 7 years, just me, just my wife doing with the merch side of it.
40:51
So, we have a merch line.
40:52
Um but that's >> Yeah, so your gear lists, those are sweet.
40:56
>> So, I do gear lists for each book.
40:56
I do gear lists for Christmas or Father's Day or something like that.
41:00
Um but it's just ways to add value to people's lives throughout the year that don't cost them anything.
41:06
Um and so that when the time comes for the book, you have built up a relationship with somebody uh out there who listens to your podcast.
41:12
And podcasts like this are so powerful because there's one person listening who's the third person in this conversation.
41:19
And there's a lot of third people listening that think they're the third person in this conversation, but there's a lot of them.
41:24
Um that's why podcasts are so popular and I think why uh audiobooks are the fastest growing segment of publishing um because people hear a podcast like this, very natural for them to then get an audiobook.
41:34
So, they're listening to a book via the same medium that they learned about it.
41:37
So, uh so I think today, unless you're an outlier like let's say a 50 Shades of Grey or a Twilight or something like that, that's uh that you're going to have to put in the work on the business side.
41:47
>> writing those sorts of books.
41:47
You know, maybe that's our future. >> Perhaps. Perhaps.
41:50
I might give it a shot at some point. Who knows? Different audience. Different audience.
41:55
Uh but it's uh I feel like you have to do those things today because there are all these little distractions out there from, you know, video games you can play for weeks on end, uh any single every movie, every TV show that's ever been made available at the top of a button on touch of a button on multiple devices.
42:10
Uh to say nothing of all the social media platforms that keep us addicted all day long and keep us from actually reading a book.
42:15
So, I think you have to do other things these days unless you're one of those outliers if you want to build that audience.
42:20
So, uh that's what So, I do do that.
42:23
So, I do a lot on that side.
42:24
I think I'm very entrepreneurial in nature.
42:26
Um not I'm not really good business person, I don't think.
42:29
But, um but on the entrepreneurial side of things, being able to adapt, being able to look at a battle space and realize, "Okay, uh I need to adapt faster than my enemy." or whatever it might be. Um I can do that.
42:40
And so, I can apply that to to publishing.
42:44
>> When I was talking to Lee Child, one of the things I really admired about him was how unapologetically commercial he is.
42:51
He sees writing as, "I'm here to turn a profit.
42:56
And also, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, did the tree really fall in the forest?"
43:02
Meaning, if no one's reading your stuff, then it doesn't matter how good it is.
43:05
People need to go actually read your stuff.
43:06
And I admire how how much conviction he has in that idea.
43:15
And all this is to say, for you, as you think of yourself as an artist, as you think of yourself as a business person, where do you see yourself on that spectrum?
43:22
Or do you even see there being a spectrum there at all?
43:25
>> Yeah, I mean, one's necessary today, especially more so than in the past where you could probably get away with writing a book and letting somebody else do the rest of it.
43:31
Um now, you really can't do that. Uh I I don't think.
43:34
But, uh but I love that that Lee Child uh talked about it like that.
43:39
Um So, yeah, there's I mean, yeah, it's the the literary fiction versus commercial fiction is interesting type of a thing, but I don't spend much time thinking about that, certainly not on a daily basis.
43:51
But, uh for me, it's just all about the story, you know?
43:53
I know I I I don't expect ever win an award for anything, and that's okay because I see the the sales numbers.
44:00
I see them continuing to climb.
44:01
I see the audience continuing to to grow, um creating new readers.
44:05
People come to my book signings all the time and say that they have never read a book that it wasn't assigned to them in school and then they found The Terminal List or they found Cry Havoc or they found Targeted Beirut and now they fell in love with reading for the first time in their life and oh by the way, here is my son, he's in eighth grade, about to start high school, will you sign this book for him, too?
44:21
He's a reader now as well and we're talking about these books together.
44:24
Every single stop, I hear that.
44:26
And so creating new readers for me is I guess it's a mission.
44:32
But but I love to hear those sorts of things because I think as a society will be a lot better off and individually anyone who puts down that phone and picks up a book is going to have a a much richer, fuller life because of it.
44:43
>> How has writing a TV series changed you as a writer?
44:50
>> I think it in ways I didn't quite get at first meaning now it's part of my experience just like anything that happens to any of us.
44:56
Now it's part of the experience.
44:59
I think the first book people would be able to recognize it and would be in the blood so book five because that's the one that where I had a full year of writing that after I had my experience in the TV show.
45:12
So there's my there's more flashbacks to the the father and I think there was there was there was more of that in the script, not at all of it made it into the TV show but there was a lot in the script that we didn't film.
45:22
So I saw that start to to pop up in there so I think maybe that came from from some of the script work but I don't think like how do I write this in a way that's going to be good translate to television because I know that that's going to be different anyway.
45:36
So I don't consider that at all.
45:38
Once again, it has to be all about the story.
45:40
Fleming, I think later on you found that he let Bond had a Scottish background because of Connery, you know, so it's so but I haven't had anything that that dramatic change but more so it's hey, hopefully one makes me better at the other and vice versa.
45:56
>> What did Fleming do so well with the James Bond novels?
45:59
>> Well, I'm he he wrote in in a way that and writing's great.
46:03
People minimize the the writing of Fleming's writing because I think of the movies.
46:08
That's all they think of as the of the movies and they think once again, commercial.
46:12
So, you know, so especially literary people turn up their nose at that sort of thing.
46:16
So, but when you revisit those books, they are extremely well written.
46:22
And one thing I think they should do for an Amazon, this is free advice, is now that they have the franchise the way that you make sure it's not compared to the Daniel Craig era, which will happen if you just do a contemporary Bond film, is you go back and you do them as period pieces.
46:38
So, the first one was written in the early '50s.
46:41
Bond is a World War veteran.
46:41
He drives a 1930s something Bentley Blower. And so, you do that.
46:47
You do a period piece Bond.
46:48
Move it out of the contemporary realm.
46:50
Do the books as they were written or more closely associated with the books.
46:55
Don't not necessarily cuz the movies just took the titles for the most part, not all of them, but most of them.
46:59
And so, you do those things as as period pieces.
47:02
And that's the way you I think reinvent the the series and not just have everybody waiting to compare it to Craig's Bond.
47:11
So, I think that's a good way to go, but Fleming described the Rolex.
47:15
Didn't give the exact model, but there's a lot of pictures of Fleming writing with the Explorer, which is probably what what Bond had.
47:22
But yeah, the vehicles, even things like aftershave, the drinks like we mentioned.
47:26
So, all of that all that's in there.
47:28
So, they're they're fun books to read and they're quick books to read.
47:33
And they got a bunch of people people reading and excited.
47:35
They created the they created the spy craze of the '60s.
47:39
From primary of the books, but then of course the film throw the films throw gasoline on that.
47:44
>> What do you think made James Bond such a rocking character? >> He's unapologetic.
47:47
So, yeah, very unapologetic.
47:52
Meaning that that blunt instrument.
47:52
And here brought a little bit of that back with with with the Craig films, but um but yeah, that for the fact that he that that's that's that's who he was.
48:02
He was a blunt instrument of British intelligence, but then also it's the the time in which they were written is fascinating, meaning we have a the British Empire not so much of an empire anymore on the decline essentially and then you have Bond. He's that last hope.
48:18
He's that last vestige of Empire and so that's that's a pretty and he and he took that as the as the mantle moving moving forward because you know, Britain obviously the sun does set on the British Empire.
48:33
>> [laughter] >> Sorry British listeners or wild viewers. >> Yeah. >> But I'm a big fan.
48:39
I I just went to London with my wife.
48:40
We would it was a Bond Fleming Le Carré inspired trip in in February because there was a stage play of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold in London and then at Oxford there was a Le Carré exhibit up there and they overlapped in February that made time and sense for our schedules to go out there.
48:55
So So we went out there and and stayed in a hotel that had some Bond history to it and I mentioned the Martini earlier at Dukes and then went up to Oxford and look at the Le Carré exhibit and then watch The Spy Who Came from the Cold stage play and and all of that.
49:09
So we had a fantastic trip.
49:12
The the concierge was a fan that recognized me right off the bat.
49:15
We got the we got the Bentley to drive around and get driven around London and so that was fun.
49:20
But yeah, I'm a big I'm a big fan of those and just once again understand the history of the genre.
49:23
I think that's important.
49:25
And my seventh novel is called Red Sky Morning.
49:27
So it's my 007th novel and that is a nod to to Fleming and his creation, James Bond. >> Sense of place.
49:34
How do you go about creating a sense of place, bringing the place, the geography, wherever the people actually are, wherever the story's actually taking place?
49:43
How do you think about bringing that to life?
49:47
>> Well, my idea was I would go somewhere for every book.
49:49
At least one of the locations in the in the books, I would go to that place, spend a week or two.
49:56
Um and uh that was I for the first one, I was still in the military, couldn't really do that, so I chose places where I'd already been.
50:01
I'd been to Iraq, been to Afghanistan, um been to those places.
50:04
So, for the second one, I went to Mozambique.
50:05
I knew that was going to be a very important piece of the story.
50:08
Then I chose some other places that I'd already been.
50:09
I'd been to Ukraine, I'd been to Morocco, so I put those in there.
50:13
It made sense geographically for the story in True Believer.
50:16
And then the third one, I knew that Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia was going to be very important, so I went there.
50:20
And uh and and then for the fourth one, COVID hits.
50:25
And luckily, that one was more domestic focused, not all, not completely, but for the most part, uh was domestically focused.
50:30
So, I chose places also that I'd been before and could describe.
50:35
Um but my goal after that, when COVID lifted, was to go to these places, at least one of the places I'm describing in the book.
50:41
And in book number five, I have a seg- part that takes place in Israel.
50:45
And once again, it was COVID was still going on, so it was very difficult to get in and out of Israel, even if as an Israeli citizen.
50:50
It was just very difficult to do that.
50:52
And they locked down pretty hard.
50:53
So, I just went all in on the research.
50:56
And then I sent the book to a family in Israel, and they had three generations read it for me.
51:00
And they got back to me and said, "I cannot believe you have not been to Israel, and you've described it like this."
51:04
And I was like, >> How did you go about describing Israel?
51:08
>> Just reading books, looking at photos, um just looking at maps.
51:12
>> What are you trying to look at?
51:12
Are you trying to look at colors?
51:13
T- What is the thing that you're trying to bring out?
51:17
>> Yeah, I don't think it's any >> I feel like this is the thing that you're so good at that you don't even realize that you're so good at it. >> Oh, well, thank you.
51:22
>> Cuz every time I ask you about it, you're like, "I don't even know."
51:23
But then you were just describing something 30 minutes ago.
51:27
I was like, "Wha- What in the world?"
51:30
>> Yeah, a lot of it probably has to do with what comes up, like what uh like for Cry Havoc, uh Vietnam, 1968.
51:35
I really wanted to go there before uh the book published.
51:40
And even if it was close to the end, so I could go back to it as I'm editing and incorporate some things, some sites, some smells that I learned there.
51:48
Um but I didn't have a chance to do that, so now I went for just last week and I'll incorporate what I learned there into the next one.
51:54
>> write this stuff down in your notebook?
51:56
>> Yeah, or send I send I do that or I send myself an email, a combination of both.
51:59
>> And what are some of the things you would have written down?
52:01
>> There's a an alley that we went to that uh I I walked through this alley and there's just all these crazy like seafood like fish and all these things just kind of sitting out in little bowls and people were you know can buy them, some are dead, some are alive.
52:13
Um and uh I saw only one cat in the alley that stood I saw this one cat not did not I see I saw zero dogs in that alley and an eel slipped out of this uh kind of this bowl that it was in it started slithering on the street look like a snake uh and this lady just got up picked it back eel backed up and put it back in this bowl that was obviously going to escape from again.
52:37
Um and so so that stood out and as I'm walking down the street another thing stood out to me I thought there's no flies.
52:41
Like this is strange this are no flies.
52:44
Um so little things like that like an absence of flies and so that will make it into a future Tom Reese Vietnam novel somehow but I sent myself that in a in an email um as soon as I was out of the alley.
52:54
Uh so things things like that but for let's say if you're describing Israel um it's reading books, it's looking at photos, it's uh looking at maps and then whatever kind of comes from those and I guess all uh thinking about it now it's probably you know whatever I notice uh about those photos or about uh a map or about a like how close something is to to a border um but I like little details.
53:17
I like these little things like McDonald's like a McDonald's in Israel kind of like in uh the Royale with Cheese remember in uh in Pulp Fiction?
53:25
So I'm like what interesting there's stopping at McDonald's so it's kind of like an American institution.
53:29
But what do they have there?
53:31
So I looked up the menu and uh and then so I wrote a little thing about a McDonald's in Israel uh which is very different than a McDonald's in the United States.
53:38
So that is adds a little a little flavor to uh to the story and uh and a detail that that people only people who have been to Israel will understand but people that haven't been there are like course there's McDonald's is different there and they have X Y or Z and you just describe the food and James Reese either loves or hates it or whatever whatever it is but it just helps bring a little color to the story. >> Yeah.
53:58
When I'm a trillionaire what I'm going to have in my house is I'm going to have this giant map room and I want to have like a thousand maps.
54:04
Actually I'll show you after.
54:07
If you go to the top of the stairs right here there's a 3D map of California and you can just rub your hand on it and there's this company called MuirWay they make these 3D maps and they're so beautiful they're so good they cost a few hundred dollars.
54:21
And I just want to have >> like nice >> so many of those cuz I'm with you man geography just dictates the world in such a fundamental way and there's something about maps and seeing how maps change over time that reveals something about the world. >> Oh yeah.
54:39
>> Oh yeah. Oh yeah for this last one if you walked in my office when I was writing Cry Havoc the Vietnam book you would have thought I was getting ready to invade North Vietnam so I had come here I had weapons from the era
54:50
knives from the era watch from the era multiple watches from the era cuz there's multiple Seiko watches that are associated with special operations in the 1960s and 70s in Vietnam but I had maps from the 60s up on the wall cuz I wanted to bring myself back there. I
55:00
I bought a big dictionary from the 60s so I had that there with me.
55:04
So I surrounded myself with those types of things National Geographics from the 60s that have Army Special Forces soldiers walking through a rice paddy.
55:14
So I tried to do as much as I could to transport myself back in time 1968 but the maps were were a key part of it.
55:19
the maps were were a key part of it. I had multiple maps up I had these like white that board things and then I had them either taped or with magnets on those boards so I could look and see oh what was the name how did they spell X Y or Z in 1968
55:31
because today you can do in contemporary research much different obviously much faster than uh research in 1968 especially when you're writing a story where the different characters can only bring their experience up to that time frame to a problems that to a conversation. You can't have 50 years of hindsight
55:46
You can't have 50 years of hindsight applied to these different conversations.
55:49
It's not going to ring true.
55:50
They only have 20 years of life up to 1968, 50 years of life, 70 depending on you know how old is somebody is, and then their experience in the world at that time.
55:58
So, that was uh that took a little longer than I than I thought, but point being surrounding myself with the maps of the era was ex tremely >> Yeah, when I was a kid, my dad would always say, "All right, who wants to sit front seat?"
56:09
And then it would be me or my sister.
56:10
We always love riding shotgun. There was one rule.
56:14
My dad had a bunch of AAA maps on the, you know, front right.
56:17
And so if you sat shotgun, which was like the holy grail, you had to navigate.
56:21
So as a kid, I would basically be out there and, you know, I'd be driving and I'm sure my dad knew where we were going, but you know, it's like, "All right, David, you, you know, this this family's riding on you."
56:32
And yeah, you'd look at the big AAA map.
56:34
You'd say, "All right, we need to pull over here, pull over there."
56:36
And definitely going to do that with my kids. >> Nice.
56:39
Well, that's a lost skill, so you better better do it with them.
56:43
Tell me about this idea of never pay attention to the odds. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah.
56:47
You know, I don't know if I got I don't know if I got that from Star Wars or if I just got that uh you know, never tell me the odds is Han Solo flies into the asteroid field in Empire Strikes Back.
56:55
That's where that's from.
56:57
But uh but mine is don't pay attention to the odds cuz don't tell me that people are going to tell you the odds.
57:02
So, it's not the Star Wars line.
57:04
Um it's they won't pay attention to those odds cuz people love to tell you how hard it is to do something.
57:07
I don't know why that is.
57:09
It's just I've just noticed it over the years.
57:10
So, if you tell somebody you want to be a New York Times best-selling author, it's do you know how hard it is to get published? >> One in 10,000. >> Exactly. Um somebody did it. Same thing with Buds.
57:20
How do you know how hard it is to be a Navy SEAL?
57:23
Uh like what's your backup?
57:23
Like the the thing is like you'll grow out of it.
57:26
Like the look is you'll grow out of it, you know.
57:27
Uh when when the weight of the world comes crashing down and how hard it is, you'll get a regular job, too. type of a thing.
57:35
And uh so for me it's just saying never pay attention because uh people will tell you the odds. They love to do it.
57:41
Uh so just don't pay attention to it. So I never do.
57:43
>> So, what is the idea there?
57:43
Is the idea that when you're really into something, you really want to do something, it's going to be hard.
57:52
It's hard to have significant achievements and you're like, "No. Go get after it. Get after it."
58:00
>> People going to tell you and kind of ignore them.
58:01
Is that what you're saying?
58:02
>> Yeah, if it was easy everybody would would do it. But somebody did it.
58:05
Somebody was on the top of the New York Times list.
58:07
All those books that I read growing up, they all said number one New York Times best-selling author.
58:11
Um all those books that I read about uh SEAL teams and uh somebody made it through Buds.
58:16
Somebody did these things. Uh I can do it, too. Why not me?
58:18
So Yeah, there's no reason why not.
58:22
>> What have you learned about writing good dialogue?
58:25
>> I think that came pretty naturally to you. I love doing it.
58:26
So uh it's probably my you know, my my favorite.
58:30
Usually I do a little bit exposition on somebody's background and then dive into dialogue.
58:34
Just kind of set it up and then dive into a conversation.
58:37
But I don't have a lot of times I don't have a goal with that conversation.
58:41
The goal for me is you get to know these characters.
58:42
Uh I can always edit it down a little bit later.
58:46
But uh it's a it's a conversation of discovery.
58:48
But I don't have a like a set thing of uh it it all comes probably from just reading those books growing up um and just writing conversations that I'd want these two characters to have and that are interesting to me as the person writing it. Um so that's that's fun.
59:04
I'm not going to write something that bores me.
59:05
So uh so it's it's just just fun. It's just fun to do.
59:11
>> How do you edit dialogue different from the way that you would edit the more expository sections?
59:17
>> Uh sometimes I'll look for repetition because sometimes I'll I'll have a bit of repetition in a longer series of dialogue for whatever reason because I'm just so free-flowing it.
59:24
It's just a boom boom boom boom.
59:26
Just writing this and I'll say, "Oh, you know what?
59:28
That sounds very similar to That sounds repetitive.
59:30
I They I kind of got this point across uh five sentences up the page or on the previous page or whatever."
59:35
So, then I'll just like take that out or morph it a bit or something like that.
59:38
Um but uh but that's about it.
59:40
I don't do it as I'm writing it.
59:41
I get the conversation out there first, and then I'll go back and and read it again and uh and then tighten it up a little bit and then move on.
59:49
>> Do you work with an editor? >> No, not till the end.
59:50
I send it to Simon & Schuster at the at the very end.
59:52
But before that, I'll send it to uh five trusted agents, trusted not literary agents, but trusted friends, and uh and I get something different from all of them.
1:00:02
So, when I the first book, I sent it to about 20 people, I would say, maybe even 25.
1:00:06
And I told myself, if two, three, maybe four have the same comment, mhm maybe I won't change cuz I've sent this out to 25 people.
1:00:16
But uh if five, six, seven, or eight say something, then I'll relook at it.
1:00:20
Um so, that's how now I And that was the only book that I sent it to 25 people, but now I have five five uh people that I sent it to, James Rookley being one, the uh guy who writes does the Vickers guides, takes those photos.
1:00:32
And two of two of the five are attorneys, and for some reason attorneys, they can really find some details.
1:00:37
Like they're really good at uh >> Oh, yeah. >> Yeah.
1:00:41
>> Attorneys are some of the best readers in the world.
1:00:43
>> Yeah, so that's pretty good.
1:00:43
So, they they take their red pens out and and give me feedback.
1:00:46
So, >> It's crazy how many people in the thriller world were attorneys for their work and then became became writers. >> Oh, interesting.
1:00:53
I mean, Chris Trow, obviously.
1:00:56
Um but there's some other ones out there. >> Yeah.
1:00:57
I really think being a lawyer teaches you to read, teaches you how to write, gives you knowledge on a bunch of different places, gives you an understanding history.
1:01:06
>> Yeah, they they certainly they're they're great editors.
1:01:07
So, uh so, anyway, so I do that um and then um I'll send I'll take either take most of I'll take what's what rings true to me, and sometimes I'll discard something or whatever else, but a lot of lot of they find things.
1:01:22
I'm like, "Oh my gosh, how did you find that? Incredible."
1:01:24
Um and then I'll make those changes and then I'll send it to Emily Bestler, my editor in New York, and then she'll go through it with a red pen, and her edits are more along the lines of, "Hey, describe this for someone who wasn't in the military for 20 years.
1:01:35
Uh or I know you think that you uh are giving up this twist early on, but that's only because you have been uh intimately involved with this creation for the last year and a half.
1:01:43
No other reader is going to pick up on it, so leave one or two more hints."
1:01:46
And uh so then I'll go okay, go back in there.
1:01:48
So, those are about the only two type of edits that I that I get.
1:01:51
And then uh and then yeah, we go back and forth a couple times on it.
1:01:54
I keep refining it, try to try to just tighten it up, and and make it the best it can possibly be, and then get to that stage where it's uh your final time to look, and you know that any mistakes going to be in there forever, and then maybe you find a couple few few more because you're psychologically you know that this is going to the printer, and then off it goes, and then onto the next.
1:02:14
>> As we begin to wrap here, I wanted to ask you about the Japanese concept of Bushido.
1:02:20
And uh I will go there, then I got one more question. >> Yeah, yeah.
1:02:24
So, I had to maybe it was junior high, but certainly by by high school, there's a a book, and somehow I misplaced it along the way, which is very odd for me.
1:02:31
Um it might still be in my mom's attic somewhere, but uh I found it again.
1:02:34
So, I knew I at the time the cover was is ingrained in my in my brain, so I have it have it again.
1:02:40
Just not my original one from uh from the early days.
1:02:42
But uh they would go into battle thinking they were already dead because that made them more effective and efficient warriors and samurai.
1:02:50
And so, I thought, "How do I bring that to a modern-day warrior?"
1:02:55
So, somebody that has these modern-day skill sets, who's a student of warfare, which is why I gave him the the Gross Tanto knives right there, gave him the Tanto knife to use, the Winkler Tanto knife, because more of an ancient weapon with uh made with modern techniques though, so it speaks to him of a student of war, and that's something that I look at myself I I approach everything as a student.
1:03:12
Um well, I'm always going to always always learning, always a student.
1:03:15
I was a student till my last day in the military.
1:03:16
I'm a student of what I'm doing doing now.
1:03:18
Uh But so I gave him so I gave him that that tomahawk.
1:03:23
But I wanted him to go into battle thinking he was already dead just like those samurai that I'd read about in junior high high school from that from this book.
1:03:31
Hey, I have multiple books but the one I'm thinking of in my mind was like almost a a coffee table type book.
1:03:37
And it was beautiful all those the Japanese samurai armor and swords and all that stuff just super cool.
1:03:43
Um so I thought ah cuz growing up you'd have that voice over in the movies and it would always say something about the protagonist has nothing left to lose and I remember I was always like, well he could die.
1:03:57
Like he's got I don't know.
1:03:57
And so I thought why don't I make this guy like the samurai of ancient times think he's already dead and that's where I started thinking oh okay, he's going to get this these drugs tested on him which was done as he came out in the church hearings of the 1970s that the CIA had tested some drugs on college students, people in prisons, mental institution patients and people in the military.
1:04:23
So it had happened before and I thought what if he has this this drug's been tested on him and it's going to kill him.
1:04:30
So now he's already dead.
1:04:32
He can go into battle already dead.
1:04:35
He has nothing left to lose truly.
1:04:38
So so that's where I held that one.
1:04:41
>> That makes me think of premise.
1:04:41
So when you're thinking of a new book and you find an idea like that, what are the ideas that you find like what do you feel like you wait for is it like a running back you're kind of waiting for an opening and then you go for it or what's the analogy there as you think of the premise of a new book of a new story?
1:04:57
>> Like finding that theme you mean? >> Yeah.
1:04:59
>> Sometimes I know it at the before I start so like with terminal list and then other times it'll come pretty quickly to me if I don't have one or if I have an idea of one or it'll shifts a bit and that happened with Savage Son like the way that we read a minute ago there, and it came from that chapter right there, chapter chapter three.
1:05:16
Uh, and that was just like the most dangerous game that we talked about earlier, the by Richard Connell, the dark side of man through the dynamic of hunter and hunted.
1:05:25
That was how I started it, but then it really morphed over into this theme of forgiveness.
1:05:28
And that theme of forgiveness came to me in that third uh chapter right there, where James Reece is having a conversation with Caroline Hastings, and she's passing on these lessons that she'd learned to him, and the importance of forgiveness and learning to move forward and live again.
1:05:44
Uh, so that was a that was a that was a powerful paragraph.
1:05:46
I I distinctly remember writing it.
1:05:48
So, um so, the that yeah, that theme uh you usually have it from the beginning, but sometimes it'll shift a little bit. Yeah. >> Last question.
1:05:57
So, if I came to you, I said, "Hey Jack, I want to do what you've done."
1:06:01
Um, what advice would you have for me in terms of, "Hey, here's how to think through the writing process."
1:06:04
I'm a student of yours in college.
1:06:06
Like, say that you're structuring a semester, and I'm saying, "I want to learn what it is that you've that you've learned."
1:06:12
What are the How do you structure that curriculum?
1:06:16
>> I'd actually like to do that at some point.
1:06:18
So, I have this uh I have a uh a start What do I call it?
1:06:21
Uh, a strategic document or something that's like a living document that's kind of keeps track of what I've done and what I want to do.
1:06:28
Um, and like and the the what I want to do part is more uh hey, I've done what my goals were already, which was to write a book, become a number one New York Times bestselling author, and get something turned into a a television show or movie. So, boom, done that.
1:06:37
Now, I just want to get better at it.
1:06:40
But, one of those things that's on that on that list is that someday, who knows, 10 years, whatever it is, 15, who knows.
1:06:47
Uh, if it doesn't happen, it's fine as well.
1:06:49
Um, but uh to do a course like that, do a semester course where I actually have to sit down and think about these things, and then structure it out so somebody can uh from the beginning of the semester to the end, maybe not have the full book out there, but be well on their way.
1:07:00
Have those first parts done, have the outline done, that executive summary done, that theme done, that title, and be on their way.
1:07:05
Um, so that would be that would be pretty cool.
1:07:09
Giving advice, it's more like this is what's worked for me.
1:07:12
You just we just talked about it.
1:07:14
Doesn't mean it's going to work for you.
1:07:16
But, this is what's worked for me.
1:07:16
So, take what's useful, discard what's useless, and sit down and write.
1:07:18
You have to sit down and write.
1:07:20
And sure, I can give you advice, but you already know what to do.
1:07:24
Ditch your phone, turn off your email, and sit down and and write uninterrupted for x number of hours every day until you get a book.
1:07:33
Then, go back and make it great, but get it done.
1:07:37
And then, when it comes to the agents and the publishing side of the house, there are conferences people can go to to find an agent.
1:07:41
These days, agent speed dating.
1:07:43
And you sit there like at ThrillerFest that's here in New York right now.
1:07:46
And you sit down, you have 2 minutes or 3 minutes or something with each agent.
1:07:49
And you get in the course of, you know, however long it takes, you do you get through 20 agents.
1:07:52
And I know three people who have found their agents and and got published that way.
1:07:56
So, but you have to go to these things.
1:07:58
You have to go to Bouchercon.
1:07:59
You have to go to ThrillerFest.
1:08:01
You have to have your book.
1:08:02
It has to be the best that you can possibly make it.
1:08:04
And then, it's time to start thinking about those other things.
1:08:08
>> Jack Carr, great to meet you.
1:08:09
>> Hey, thanks so much for having me. This is awesome. >> Of course. >> Take care.