
Author Imprint
Panel: Steve Berry, Katherine Neville, and Jeffery Deaver
Steve Berry, Katherine Neville, and Jeffery Deaver are thriller writers who have sold millions of books worldwide. They discuss their advocacy of the Smithsonian Libraries' Adopt-a-Book program and their writing process. The three have been friends for years, and though their books are different, they all have something in common: they got published later in life, after living a little.
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to Author Imprint,
I'm your host Maddie Orton.
Today we're doing something a
little different.
We have a panel of three
best-selling authors here to
talk about their books and
their work supporting the
Smithsonian Libraries.
Steve Berry is a New York
Times and internationally
best-selling author.
History is at the core of his
novels and he created a
foundation devoted to
historical preservation called
History Matters.
He's won multiple awards for
his writing and philanthropy.
Steve thanks for joining us.
It's great to be here,
thank you.
Our next guest is Katherine
Neville a modern day
renaissance woman whose books
defy categorization and have
graced bestseller lists in 40
languages.
Both Katharine and Steve are
on the advisory board of the
Smithsonian Libraries in
Washington D.C. Thanks for
being here Katherine.
Thank you Maddie.
And the final author to join
us today is Jeffery Deaver,
an internationally bestselling
thriller writer.
He's received awards by many
different mystery writing
associations.
And three of his books have
been adapted for screens large
and small.
Thanks so much for being here.
Thanks a lot, Maddie.
Let's start with why you're
here in New York City.
You're all here to support the
Smithsonian Libraries'
Adopt-A-Book program.
Can you tell me a little bit
about what it means to adopt a
book.
Well it - the Smithsonian
libraries if you don't know
it, there's 22 libraries.
At the heart of every
Smithsonian museum is a
library.
They're not out on the floor,
you don't see them,
but they're tucked away
somewhere and they are
literally the heart of that
museum.
And together those 22
libraries are one of the
largest repositories of
knowledge in the world.
And we have a enormous amount
of information and there are
millions of pieces of
documents, books,
and all kinds of artifacts.
Well some of those need some
help.
Some of those need
restoration.
And so we created the
Adopt-A-Book program where you
can actually adopt a book and
pay for that restoration.
It can be as little as a
hundred dollars or 150 dollars
or 200 dollars.
Sometimes it can be a few
thousand dollars,
it depends on the condition of
the book.
But if you adopt a book it's
really kind of neat,
you get your little plaque in
the front, it's your book.
You can come visit your book,
you can bring people to see
your book.
You're kind of like the parent
- that is your book.
And we have adopted thousands
of books and we're having an
event here at the Cooper
Hewitt too to bring that adopt
a book program to New York.
I think it's really exciting
that the three of you are
friends in real life.
I was very- I was going to say
thrilled to hear that.
You're a part of a thriller
organization as well.
Tell me a little bit about
that.
Oh it's fantastic.
Well a number of years ago
some thriller writers got
together,
it was with David Morrell,
who wrote First Blood that
they based all the Rambo
movies on,
and Gayle Lynds who is the
first person Robert Ludlum
ever asked to co-author a book
with him,
and the two of them decided
that they wanted thriller
writers to be more recognized
because the Cold War was over
and everyone thought of
thrillers as being like Cold
War,
you know behind the iron
curtain.
Sure, spies.
And there were all these
different thrillers that were
going on like legal thrillers
and horror thrillers and
romantic suspense thrillers.
Ever-popular serial killer
thrillers.
So yeah ever popular serial
killers.
In his unbiased opinion.
And so 32 of us got together
and we founded International
Thriller Writers.
Now we come to the Grand Hyatt
in New York to the center of
publishing and it grew - the
original one maybe had a
hundred people now we have
over 1000.
Wow.
And thriller Fest is not- it's
fans,
we do have fans that come but
it's mainly a genre conference
so we have writers,
soon-to-be-writers, editors,
agents...
We have agent fest we have 60
of the biggest agents in the
business there.
Wow.
That you can pitch your book
to.
There isn't a competitive
feeling,
it's all "I want to help you.
What can I do.
Oh why don't you come with me
and be on this program.
Why don't you come with me
appear at this panel with me."
It's just, don't you agree,
just so much generosity.
I should mention by the way
you have some power hitters
here, on either side of me.
That Steve was, as I said,
our copresident of
International Thriller
Writers.
And Jeff this year is the
president of Mystery Writers
of America.
And the fact that those are
two different things I think
is amazing.
Yeah.
Shall I say the difference
between mysteries and
thrillers?
That's what I was going to ask
you!
You beat me to it!
Yes!
In a mystery,
something happens and you try
to figure out- some kind of
crime or accident...
You try to figure out who done
it, how they done it,
where they done it,
why they done it,
motive and so forth.
In a thriller,
you hear some terrorists
whispering in a back room or
plotting something or you see
a bomb ticking under a table
or something in like "High
Noon" you know.
And you're waiting for
something to happen and you
try to prevent it from
happening,
try to figure out where it's
going to happen,
when it's going to happen.
So it's just the same type of
plotting suspense technique.
But the converse of it.
I have a stack of books on my
bedside table.
If you ever hear about the
author killed because books
fell over on him in the middle
of the night.
That's you.
I keep saying "I'm going to
get to these,
I'm going to get to these."
But if I'm going to sleep at
night I'll pick up a murder
mystery.
And that would be an Agatha
Christie kind of story,
or a Dashiell Hammett.
Because I can read a chapter
to enjoy it.
Oh little intellectual puzzle.
But I can close the book.
If I pick up a Katherine
Neville or a Steve Berry for
instance,
and I say "OK I'm going to go
to sleep.
Oh no I have to keep going.
I'm going to fall asleep.
Oh no I have to keep going."
So that kind of puts that in
the context of the reader's
response to the murder mystery
versus thriller.
You all had very versatile
careers before you this.
That were in some ways very
far off,
in some ways very similar.
You have two lawyers here
right?
Two lawyers.
Jeff's former career is my
favorite.
Ok.
Jeff?
Well Which among those is- I
was a- let's see,
I'm a recovering attorney.
There was that.
I was a journalist for a time.
Are we talking about the folk
singer part?
Please let's talk about the
folk singer part.
I aspire to be a Bob Dylan
Jackson Browne,
more into the thoughtful song
writing aspect.
Now to be a singer-songwriter,
there are two components to
that right.
The singing part.
Not so good.
So that career didn't last
very long.
If Jeff had stayed with that
career.
And I said this onstage at the
Edgar Allan Poe awards,
he might today have received
the Nobel Prize in Literature.
And Katherine,
you were a photographer,
a model, and a painter,
do I have that right?
And a banker?
And a banker.
Actually I a think I was
actually a computer wizard.
I was like a technocrat.
So all the way through school
I worked as a model because
they didn't have a lot of jobs
for girls then unless you
could type and I couldn't
type.
And so I actually worked as a
model and then I learned so
much from the photographers
who photographed me.
I'd say,
"what lens are you using?"
You know.
Lindsay using and I became a
commercial photographer many
years later.
And actually the first female
one in Colorado I think.
Wow.
Yeah.
Because I knew all the male
photographers and - But the
thing is I had to work,
and there was a brand new
profession starting that no
one had ever heard called data
processing.
And so I learned how to
program and how to design
systems and that took me all
over the world.
Yeah.
And so I got a lot of
material.
I'll never run out of material
for novel.
Yea.
And then Steve you were a
public servant and a lawyer
right?
I was a lawyer for 30 years I
was a trial lawyer.
I was like a hired gun.
I went to court for you.
But I was also in a small
town,
so I did all the little stuff.
Corporations, wills adoptions,
all those kind of - loan
clousores,
loan closings on your house
and that kind of thing.
So I had my office and I
served in public office 14
years.
Wow.
In what position?
County Commissioner and school
board member, and I miss that.
We've touched on something
here in this strain of the
conversation,
that I think writers need to
live life.
I think they need to do a
number of careers and that's
why I didn't publish until I
was in my early 30s.
Although I knew from I was -
when I was 11 years old.
I wanted to be a fulltime
novelist.
There was no doubt in my life.
But I also knew it wasn't- I
couldn't do it right away.
You need to experience things,
you need to be in
relationships,
look at the world a little
bit, know about conflict.
And so that's why that's one
of the reasons I picked law
and another reason I picked
journalism.
Whenever I speak to young
young people who are aspiring
writers I always say- "What
are the two things that are
most important?"
They always ask, you know,
to become a writer.
And I would say get a job and
get a Eurail pass.
Well said, that's brilliannt.
Go!
Travel!
How did each of you do the
transition from your previous
job to this?
It was a long process for me.
I didn't publish I was 47.
And so I was published in 0 3
with "The Amber Room" and then
subsequently got to establish
a career and I got to do it
full time.
I didn't set out to do that,
because I wasn't arrogant
enough to think that "well I
can write these books and I
can write full time and and be
a novelist" and all that.
I never thought that but I
wanted to be a commercial
fiction writer but I didn't
know if I could actually pull
it off it just worked out.
Where I got to do it full time
and then I did seven books
still as a lawayer.
I 1uit on book 8.
Wow.
Which was very scary.
I was terrified to quit
because you're you're cutting
a lifeline.
You have to understand,
I made a very good living as a
lawyer.
I didn't need a dime from
publishing, I did very well.
But I was cutting that off.
I'm selling the office,
I'm shutting down the
practice,
I mean you're not you're not
burning bridges you're nuking
bridges.
Wow.
It's true, it's true.
What drove you to tell those
stories?
The little voice in your head.
The only reason any writer
writes is they have a little
voice in their head that tells
them to write.
I mean every- I say this all
the time.
I don't think writers are
born.But the little voice in
your head you're born with.
And if you listen to the
little voice and you develop
the little voice,
you can become a writer
because there's a craft to it.
There's a right way and a
wrong way to write things.
It's an art,
and you can express yourself
and have a lot of fun with it,
but there are still ways to do
it right and ways to do it
wrong.
And you have to learn that
craft,
but it's that little voice in
your head that tells you to
write and it doesn't say
"write a bestseller and make a
bunch of money and do all
that," no.
It just says "sit down and
write.
If you'll sit down and write I
will shut up.
If you don't,
I will nag you to do it.
And that's what happened and
every writer has it.
Every writer,
like Paris Reviews interviews,
every writer no matter what
kind of writing they do,
they always say- if it's
fiction,
they always say: you know
you're a real writer when you
start to hear the sound of
your own voice.
But it's really when you start
to hear the sound of your
character's voice,
when you start to be a court
stenographer and writing and
taking notes on what the
characters are saying.
So I always say the third
ingredient is you have to be
sort of basically
schizophrenic inclination.
Is that really what it feels
like in those moments of this
is what the character would
say?
Yea you have to let the
characters start talking.
In the middle of my last book,
I was under deadline and I was
running late and I called my
my editor and I said,
"Well I'm really sorry but
this one character just
started talking and I didn't
know he was going to tell me
that he learned to play chess
in his mother's kitchen while
he was snapping peas." He said
"OK I guess you have to do
it."
When I um - I'm more of a plot
driven author.
Have you heard the expression
of pantser and plotter?
A pantser is an author who
will tend to just start with a
blank page and then go forward
as in "seat of the pants"
flying that way.
And then a plotter is someone
who outlines and I do a great
deal of- I do a great deal of
outlining and yes occasionally
a character will develop a
voice of his or her own that
does not jive with where my
plot is going in which case
they become the next victim.
I'm sorry I can not take...
You don't have time for that.
Right,
I have occasionally taken them
our of that book I'm working
on and given them their own
book but it's so much easier
just to kill them.
Oh my gosh!
Well that actually brings up
an interesting question for
me.
When you plot out a thriller
like "The Bone Collector" for
example which is, you know,
such a widely known book.
Do you know where this is
going before you start?
Well I'll explain it very very
quickly here.
I um...
The answer is no.
But I had an idea in "The Bone
Collector,
" for instance about a
quadriplegic forensic
detective,
someone - a New York City
police officer,
injured on the side of a crime
scene.
And he was in retirement,
but then he had to come out of
retirement to track down a man
obsessed with bones,
a killer obsessed with bones.
That was the only idea I had.
And so then I started with
Post-It-Notes on a big
corkboard in my office and for
the next roughly six or seven
months I moved the scenes
around until I had a rough
idea of where I wanted the
story to go and what I wanted
the twist to be at the end.
Because my books have twists.
I like- all the subplots have
twist after twist after twist.
And so at the end,
then I would go back and put
clues in that would allow the
reader to come to the twist
and say,
"Oh you know that was in
Chapter 7.
I should have seen that clue,
I should have seen this clue."
So I am excessive in
outlining.
I don't expect my students to
do that,
but I think it was Joyce Carol
Oates who said you can't write
the first sentence of your
book or story until you know
what the last sentence is.
Doesn't mean you have to know
the exact sentences.
But you have to know kind of
where you're going.
And I'm an advocate of that.
But you know an author like
George R.R.
Martin who wrote the Game of
Thrones books, for instance.
And I think will be a guest at
ITW,
he'll be the ThrillerMaster.
He said you can't plot it out,
writing is like a garden,
you plant a seed and you kind
of nurture the seed but you
never quite know where it's
going to go.
So it's you know it's just
it's very subjective whatever
you're most comfortable with.
And actually to that end,
the idea of planting a seed
and seeing where it goes.
Steve and Kathrine you both
work with historical fiction.
Oh yea, I have to know.
I'm like John Irving.
John Irving stood up.
He's the only person I've ever
heard say this,
and he said he always has to
write the last sentence first
sentence first.
Do you?
He doesn't care what happens
in between.
As long as he knows where he's
headed because you can't-
otherwise you can end up
getting so fascinated by your
research that you paint
yourself into a corner.
Jeff said it but I say it
another way I say - I'm asking
where do you start a book?
You start a book as close to
the end as possible.
How do you mean?
Just that.
You started a book as close to
the end- So what does that
presuppose?
You got to know the end.
So you know the end and you
get as close to that moment as
you can get.
In my case it's between 24 and
48 hours.
How close can I get to that,
to start the story?
You have 12 months to produce
a book you don't have a lot of
time to sit around and gaze at
it and think about it and all
that.
You've got to get moving.
You've got to get going and
you've got to produce that
book and get it done because
publishers have this rule,
it's the worst rule in the
world they will not change it
under any circumstance.
They will not give you a check
unless you give them a book.
And they will hire me and
modify that rule for anybody.
I don't care who you are.
What folly, I'm shocked!
And so you have to produce.
And we're commercial fiction
writers.
This is what we do.
We do this for a living and
we're entertainers.
I mean I say that all the
time,
my books aren't going to win
the National Book Award or the
Nobel Prize or any award
really,
they're not going to do it.
They're not designed for that.
But if you can read my book
for a few hours have a little
fun and forget where you are
and just have a good time.
I've done my job.
But so here's the question,
if you're balancing art and
commerce and you have a year
to do it.
That's right.
That's a great question.
How does that work for you?
I mean do you believe in
writer's block?
What do you do when you get
there?
Just barrell through it
because you have a timeline?
For me it takes me five to ten
years to write a book.
I was about to say,
we have to-.
They have to just have to
wait.
But it terms of page count,
we're pretty similar.
I mean your books are long.
Yea they're long.
500.
Yea Jeff and I do one a year.
Basically we do the- we're in
the one a year group and so we
have to-.
Well he is the speedy bullet.
He really is,
he can write - we were
discussing this earlier and he
said "Oh you need a short
story,
well give me two or three
days.
Well I do- I do write a lot of
short stories.
But you know one of the keys
in that is knowing what to
write because,
I think Terry Pratchett said,
there's no such thing as
writer's block.
It was invented by people in
California who can't write.
Right - that's correct.
Now that's being a bit
facetious.
However if you are working in
a genre that you're
comfortable with and you plan
your book out ahead of time to
make sure it's a viable book,
you won't be blocked.
So where do you get your next
idea then?
Well I mean I think we can all
agree that ideas aren't really
a problem.
Do you agree with that?
Yea
I mean that I have lots of
ideas.
The time, I find that,
getting a bit older now,
just the energy.
I mean I do a book a year,
I probably do eight or nine
short stories a year,
and I'm working on a- I'm
writing a script now for an
independent film.
So it's just getting a little
more tired to do that.
So to sit in the chair for the
eight or ten hours isn't as
much fun as it used to be.
Yea you have to get a lot of
exercise.
Yeah well I should get more
exercise.
I studied with chess masters,
they have to get up and
exercise because they
sometimes sit for twelve hours
straight.
Is that right.
Is that right?
I didn't know that.
You studied with chess
masters?
I studied because I don't play
chess well but my books all
have chess plots.
The entire plot of the book is
a giant chess game.
"The Eight" of course had all
chess.
And I have chess in I think
almost every book.
And Steve what about you?
Because you have a specifice
piece in history see that
you're pulling from,
how do you choose that piece
of history?
That's why it's becoming- it's
more difficult for me because
I have to find that thing and
they're becoming more
difficult to find.
You can find things from
history but making them
relevant today.
And how do I find it?
All kinds of places, books,
TV, magazines...
Mainly from traveling.
You go there.
Mainly from being somewhere
and someone says something.
And that's where "The
Alexandria Link" came from,
it's where "The Romanov
Prophecy" came from.
The one place the ideas never
come from is when you go and
look for them.
They must find you.
You cannot find them.
They're completely impossible
to find if you go hunting for
them but they will find you if
you'll get yourself in the
places where you need to be to
hear those things.
And occasionally I'll be
walking down the street.
And it used to be I had a
little pad of paper and
pencil,
now you can use your
smartphone of course and
dictate things,
but I remember I had this-
when I woke up in the middle
of the night,
it's just a brilliant idea and
I wrote it down and fell back
asleep.
And I woke up and I'm so
excited and it was like
incomprehensive.
I knew it would have been the
next bestseller and it was oh
(gibberish).
And you know I blame the fact
I was too lazy to put the
light on.
That'll do it.
But you know what?
In every culture,
and I say this over and over,
in every culture there is this
fairy tale about a rock in the
middle of the road,
and people are going down the
road and they're breaking the
axle wheels and they have to
detour and they're cursing the
rock in the road.
And finally this young boy
comes along and he goes "oh
someone might get hurt I'd
better move that rock so with
great effort he pries the rock
out and moves it,
and under there is the pot of
gold or the- or the map to the
pot of gold or the map to the
rainbow that will lead to the
pot of gold.
And if you don't pick up that
rock you're not- the story
changes.
The minute you pick up the
rock,
if something plops into your
book,
you really have to follow it.
And if it plops into your
life,
not when you're asleep but...
So what's the next thing that
plopped into each of your
lives.
What are you all working on
now?
I'm working on the 2019 novel
cause you stay in a year ahead
in the book business,
so I will turn that book in
January-February of 18,
to publish in the spring of
19.
So I'm working this Cotton
Malone adventure and it deals
with Malta,
which is one of my favorite
places in the world.
I've been wanting to set a
book in Malta and deal with
something there that's very
interesting and that's real
from history and something
cool...
Anything you can tell us
about?
I don't want to give that
away.
But the 2018 book I could tell
you about.
It's called The Bishop's Pawn.
It's a Cotton Malone
adventure,
deals with the assassination
of Martin Luther King.
Because next year is the
fiftieth anniversary of that,
so I've been holding that
story for a long time and it's
my first dalliance into first
person.
So this will be all Cotton
Malone first person.
I've never been a first person
novel and it was a lot of fun
I enjoyed.
I enjoyed doing it.
That's exciting.
Katherine?
Well I have been working on
this book for a really long
time.
It's about painters in the
1600s and modern times.
And I was a painter when I was
really young and I realized
that that was when art
changed.
You know everything changes
with new technology.
But that was the moment when
the Flemish had invented oil
paints just a short time
before that,
and all of a sudden,
instead of having to compete
for these big church
commissions on walls and
frescoes and egg tempera on
panel,
all of a sudden the painters
could put their pigments in
their pocket and their their
linen canvas on their back and
they could go to Venice and
wait for the ships to come in
and bring the,
you know things from India and
China.
All of a sudden,
there was transparency and
light in art and women could
paint because they didn't have
to compete for the big church
commissions,
they could go live in the
harem and many of them did go
live in the court,
and you know and paint all the
families of the kings.
So there's travel going on all
of a sudden they could see
each other painting.
It was a revolution and it was
very exciting to me.
But the problem is no one's
doing that kind of painting
anymore.
So I really had to do a huge
amount of research on how they
used to do it you know how you
know,
hands-on so that- so anyway,
it's really fun.
It's a really fun period for
me.
Very cool.
"The Cutting Edge." It's a
Lincoln Rhyme novel,
the character from "The Bone
Collector" and it takes place
actually not too far from
where we are right now,
on 47th Street in the diamond
district.
And that's what- all of my
books have a little bit of
esoterica.
"The Broken Window" was about
data mining,
"The Kill Room" was about
targeted assassinations
extrajudicially by the US
government of of US citizens.
"The Burial Hour,
" my most recent book,
is about immigration asylum
seeking.
This one is about the world of
diamonds,
and not blood diamonds because
that's been done,
but the whole economic
socioeconomic aspect of the
diamond industry which I found
fascinating, just fascinating.
Well that sounds like a lot to
look forward to.
Thank you so much for being
here.
Thanks a lot Maddie.
You can check out books by
these prolific writers
wherever books are sold.
Steve Berry's atest is the
"The Lost Order,
" Jeffery Deaver's is "The
Burial Hour" and Katherine
Neville's is "The Fire" which
is the sequel to her first
book,
"The Eight." An adventure is
guaranteed.
Let us know which authors
you'd like to hear from and
what you're reading on
Facebook or Twitter at WLIW21
hashtag Author Imprint.
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Author Imprint Podcast
- WordsAuthor Imprint: The Podcast — Lisa LucasJune 28, 2018
- WordsAuthor Imprint: The Podcast — Meg WolitzerJune 21, 2018
- WordsAuthor Imprint: The Podcast — Steve BerryJune 14, 2018
More Episodes (8)
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Panel: Steve Berry, Katherine Neville, and Jeffery DeaverMay 31, 2018
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Meg Wolitzer Discusses "The Female Persuasion"April 26, 2018
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Cartoonist Roz Chast Discusses Her Book "Going Into Town"March 08, 2018
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Becky Aikman Discusses "Off the Cliff"March 02, 2018
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Jeremiah Moss Talks Gentrification in "Vanishing New York"November 16, 2017
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Author Jason Reynolds Discusses "Ghost"July 26, 2017