The Carnage Report was lucky enough to catch up and probe best selling author Mike Wells, author of Wild Child and Lust, Money, & Murder and below was the result. Enjoy!!
What inspired you to write?
For me, that's a little like asking
what inspired a bird to fly, or what inspired a fish to swim. I am a
writer; writing is what I do. I feel a strong urge to write each and
every day, and I've had this urge as long as I can remember. This urge is
different from "inspiration," I think. To me, inspiration is a
kind of high, and like most highs--whether naturally or artificially
induced--it wears off pretty fast.
Inspiration might get me started on a
book, but I could never actually finish a whole novel, which takes months or
years, fueled by inspiration alone. I would never get through that
difficult middle part of the story, where, as the author, you have to struggle
with the thorniest story issues.
Did your family play a role in the
development of your literary skills?
Definitely. My mother is also
a writer. Some of my earliest memories are the sound of her tapping away
on a typewriter, writing short stories and other pieces. In fact, the
sound of someone clicking away on a keyboard in the next room is very
comforting to me. Maybe I caught the desire to be a writer through some
sort of osmosis, or it's in the genes, I don't know.
My family, as well
as my wife and her family, have always been very supportive of my writing.
They have grown along with me in their supportive roles, too. My
wife has learned to be a fantastic developmental editor and her mother, who is
a retired journalist, also helps a lot with both the overall shaping of my
books and marketing.
Do you have any literary influences
on your work?
I'm sure I do, but I'm not that
aware of them when I'm writing. Stephen King, Rod Serling, Thomas Hardy,
David Mamet and Sidney Sheldon have influenced me a lot. I’ve dissected their books and screenplays in
great detail, trying to understand how their plotting, characters, dialogue,
and other story elements work.
What do you think of the state of
the book market at the moment?
The fact that ebooks are
revolutionizing the publishing industry in a disruptive way has been a godsend
to me. The gatekeepers, the literary agents and editors who were the
barriers in traditional publishing, are no longer in the way. Now
authors can easily self-publish and reach readers, and the general public
decides which books are good and which ones are not. What could be fairer
than that? Of course, the negative side is that virtually anyone who can
push buttons and put together strings of characters (not necessarily forming
intelligible words or sentences) can publish.
This makes it hard for good
books to be discovered by readers. However, the industry is still better under
this more democratic model. I wouldn't want the system to go back to what
it was before, not that it would be possible now. Having a relatively few
“experts” wedge themselves in between authors and the reading public, for the
purpose of deciding what people will read, is a terrible concept. It is a
formula for corruption.
What inspired you to write Wild
Child?
There's the I-word again! I
felt the urge to write Wild Child as a result of a dream that I had about a
girl that I knew in high school -- in the dream, she challenged me to swim
across a lake, and it seemed a more than a little dangerous. When I woke
up I thought, "Hm, that's an interesting situation" and felt a lot of
energy underneath it. I poured myself a cup of coffee and started writing
the first scene. The story grabbed hold and I wrote the entire thing in a
very short period, in a kind of creative frenzy.
What advice would you lend to a
budding writer who has already completed his first novel?
First, break out the champagne!
Ninety percent of the people who say they want to write a novel never
actually start one, and ninety percent of those who start one never finish.
So by completing your first novel, you're in the upper 99th percentile.
You have every right to celebrate!
Now, for the not so good news.
As hard as it is to do, try to accept the fact that this first novel of
yours is probably not a masterpiece. There is little chance of it
magically zooming to the top of the bestseller lists or that you will be
hounded by a gaggle of paparazzi and crazed fans who all "want a piece of
you." If you try to publish your book via the traditional route, you
will probably not even be able to find an agent willing to represent it.
If you self-publish it, it's likely that your book will just sit there
online and be completely ignored. I hate
to sound so negative, but these are the facts.
Of course there are rare exceptions to this—you might happen to hit on
subject matter and/or a style of writing that strikes a nerve in millions, and
have your book “go viral,” but think this is a matter of luck more than
anything else.
However, take heart: if you
decided to learn to be a baker, would you expect your first cake to be perfect
and take the world by storm? The layers would probably be sliding off
each other, the icing job would look a bit sloppy, and it would taste a little
off. That's how your first book will be. Accept it. To write
a good novel, a formidable set of skills must be mastered. And, like
baking or roller-blading or designing spacecraft, much of the learning comes
through trial-and-error and experience.
The most important thing you can do
is get your first book out there in front of as many unbiased readers as
possible. The operative word here is "unbiased."
Your mom will force a smile as she swallows that first piece of cake,
suppressing a grimace, and a few people who you thought were your friends will
lash out with unmerited criticism because they're envious that you turned out
to be in that upper 1%. As a new author, the only readers who are of
value to you are total strangers, folks who have absolutely nothing to lose or
gain by reacting openly and honestly.
There are a number of websites that
allow writers to post books for free for the purpose of getting feedback, often
from professionals--HarperCollins runs an excellent one (www.authonomy.com). What I would recommend is
posting HALF of your book, cutting that first part on a cliffhanger, and then
see if people start asking you for the other half. This is the only true
litmus test for whether your writing is any good--if it is, people will want
MORE. Even friends or family won't ask for more unless they're hooked.
If you post half your book and
nobody wants to read more, then you need to bite the bullet and start asking
why, what's the matter with it? This is where another 90% of wannabe
authors drop off, the ones who cannot accept any negative feedback and falsely
believe that great writers simply sit down and whip off masterpieces with no
learning curve. Taking this last difficult and often painful step forward
will lead you to address the weak spots that you have in your writing, and you
will be well on your way to success.
You have written a lot of books.
Which one was the hardest to write?
The Drive-By Wife, a psychological
thriller which I am about to release, has definitely been the hardest book I've
ever written. I'm not saying this because it's my latest book and is
heavy on my mind. I say it because it's the book that's taken me the
longest to write. It amazes me to think that I started in…drum roll
please…1995! Eighteen years, folks, to finish one book. Of course
in terms of actual time it probably only took about a year and a half.
I
got stuck in the middle of the story and every few years I pulled the
half-finished manuscript out of the drawer and valiantly attacked it again,
only to find myself yanking out my hair in tufts (which is why I don't have
much now) and then finally saying, "I just can't nail this one," and
putting it away. It's very discouraging when that happens but you just
have to keep the faith.
Part of the reason this crime novel was so
difficult is that it takes place between three characters and is almost
"hermetically sealed," like an Agatha Christie mystery. The
character dynamics were hell to develop and get right. But it's also
because I simply didn't have the skill set to finish the book. As I said
earlier, writing a good novel requires mastering lots of skills, and the
learning curve is never finished--this particular book really required me to
stretch beyond anything I've written before.
Do you have a writing process?
Yes. When I start on a new book
I become very organized, get everything all lined up and ready to go, telling
myself that unlike all the other books I've written, THIS one will go smoothly.
Then I start writing, trying to maintain that order, becoming more and
more desperate as things begin to fall apart, and eventually I say "Oh,
hell" and dive head-first into the deep end, struggling, choking on water,
jumping all over the place in the story, half-drowning and fighting for dear
life...and after a few months of this struggle, my wife finally drags me out
and gives me CPR, and the first draft is done. The rest is relatively
easy.
For you, what comes first? Character or plot?
That's one of those chicken-and-the-egg
questions, because as you well know it's nearly impossible to separate the two.
Sometimes Character and Plot arrive together, unbidden, with a lot of
fanfare, in a horse-pulled carriage, and they graciously step out and introduce
themselves to me. Other times I have to round up a posse to go track one
or the other of them down, and I often find them cowering in a cave somewhere,
refusing to come out.
Interestingly, Billy, the villain and most
memorable character in The Drive-By Wife, appeared out of nowhere in a scene in
another story I was writing in a completely different genre. Billy was so
fascinating that I simply took that scene and started developing a plot around
him, one that would really let him shine as a villain.
Conversely, in Lust, Money &
Murder, the plot came first. I had an idea that there might be a criminal
somewhere out in the world who could counterfeit U.S. paper money so well that
the fakes would be indistinguishable from the real thing. So I had the
plot first, and then I needed to create interesting characters who would fit
that plot, a villain and a hero.
But if you want to know the truth,
these two elements, plot and character, come at me much faster and much less
distinctly than it sounds here--whenever I'm working on a story idea, the
characters and plot hit me almost simultaneously and I jump back and forth
between the two very rapidly--I mean, ten times back and forth in five minutes,
that kind of thing.
So the two elements shape each other until the
overall story is nice and round, everything works from both a character and
plot point of view. In fact, that's the most difficult part of writing
for me, going back and forth and massaging the plot and character until it all
fits together seamlessly.
Do you have any new releases in the
pipeline?
Yes, as I mentioned previously, The
Drive-By Wife will be released shortly (around September 1st). This is a
psychological thriller about a young, upper middle-class couple who are
terrorized by a seedy truck driver who becomes obsessed with the wife.
He tries to blackmail the couple into letting
him spend the night with her each time he passes through town. My wife
describes it as “Cape Fear” meets “Psycho.” Following The Drive-By Wife, I plan
to have Lust, Money & Murder, Books 4, 5 & 6, out by the end of
the year, in time for the holiday season. This will feature the same
characters, including the villain, who was in the first series.
I want to say that I appreciate the
opportunity to give this interview, and to thank you for asking such good
questions.
Connect with Mike on twitter @MikeWellsAuthor or visit Mike's site here,
Also, you can purchase Mike's books at Amazon here
