Making it Up with Lee Goldberg, author of Murder By Design

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Fellow writers, hello, this is Carter, and welcome to this episode of Making It Up, the conversation series, where two writers just sit down and talk about whatever they want to talk about.
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Very rarely do we actually talk about their books because I want to find out about them, their journey, what they think about writing, craft, all of that kind of stuff.
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So hopefully not things that they've already talked about a thousand times over on BookTour.
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Before I get to today's guest, just to note a couple things.
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Actually, I have with my Unbound Writer company, I have I am teaching a class this weekend, May 30th, online only, called The Visible Writer, about how to do all the other things that you need to do as a writer besides writing.
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So if you're looking to be a career author, there is a certain level of visibility you need to have in order to show people that you are actually a real person and not AI.
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Um so we're going to talk about things like how to develop your website, how to speak publicly, how to manage social media in a way that's authentic and doesn't feel gross to you.
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All of those things.
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So check that all that out, as well as my one-on-one coaching and upcoming retreats, all at unboundwriter.com.
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All right, today on the show, today I talked to the powerhouse Lee Goldberg.
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Um, I recently talked to his brother Todd as well.
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Um, so Lee is the number one New York Times bestselling author of, I mean, what did he say in the podcast?
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Something like 70 books.
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Uh, he's also written over a hundred screenplays.
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So that's what we would call prolific in the industry.
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And he's got a whole new series coming out, starting with that, starting with the first book in this series, Murder by Design, which launches just this June 1st, 2026.
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And we just had a great conversation, and he is just a wealth of information, not only in terms of a specific advice for writers, um, but you know, one of the things he said is about how to make words disappear.
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You never want to have a reader remember that they're actually reading a book, which is obviously easier said than done.
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Um, but fantastic advice.
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Um, just hearing the chronology of his writing career and how that has influenced how he writes, starting from journalism to kind of almost getting an assignment of a book when he was in college that became a massive bestseller, to then writing spec screenplays and then getting heavily invested in the TV industry, uh, working on shows like Monk and then pivoting back to writing, which includes writing 15 novels about monk, to now doing a bit of both with more of the focus, I'd say, currently on his novels.
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It was a fantastic conversation.
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Um, and then we did a great little storytelling at the end.
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Um, although we can we cut it off just after a few seconds.
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It was short but sweet.
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Um, all right, you're gonna love this one, friends.
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This is my conversation with Lee Goldberg.
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So I I actually um interviewed your brother about a month ago.
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I am so sorry.
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I know so sorry for letters and everything that come in of people offended by what he said.
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I'm sorry for the profanity.
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I'm sorry for the nudity.
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I think I was more than all the things I know he brings.
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He was more nude than me, but I was more profane.
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But it's it's I mean, it's probably a topic that's been discussed ad nauseum, but um, it's got to be kind of interesting.
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Like, you know, I'm researching the two of you, and I'm like, yeah, but Lee's number one New York Times bestselling author.
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And he's number six.
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Oh no, we've never brought that up.
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Yeah, no, actually, joking aside, it was a real thrill for not only both of us to be on the New York Times bestseller list, but also to be on the same week.
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I mean, what would be realized that?
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Yeah, so his book had come out I think two weeks earlier.
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So he had debuted a little bit higher.
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I think he debuted at number three or something.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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And then my book came out, and I was number one and he was number six, but it's still we shared New York Times best sellers, and it's clipped out, I assume.
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In front of it, yeah, we do.
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I mean, I I've I have a this is not my office that I'm in right now, but in my office I don't have as much wall space as I would like.
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So I have to take down these are champagne problems, take down a lot of kudos and memorabilia because there isn't room for it all.
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So yeah, I did have that New York Times framed.
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Um, I think Todd may still have it up in his office, but it was a great, great moment for us.
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And he and I also had a signing around the same time at a Barnes and Noble, and so there was a poster at the Barnes and Noble that had that week's best sellers, and there were our two covers, so we had our pictures taken in front of it.
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I mean, to have both of our dreams come true and have a it on the same week is amazing, was really nice.
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Yeah.
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Well, I how long ago was this a dream of yours, though?
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Because I I think for every author, it's a dream to be on the New York Times bestseller list.
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I mean, I've I've known all my life that I wanted to be an author and a TV writer, producer.
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I didn't think both were possible, but I was lucky enough to be able to pull off both.
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Um, so yeah, it was a dream.
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And then Todd, I think he may have told you in his interview, saw through my success that yes, being a writer as a career was possible.
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And he took a different route.
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Yeah, he took a more literary route.
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In fact, tomorrow he is uh a finalist for the second time for the LA Times book prize.
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That's amazing.
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So he'll find out tomorrow whether he's won it or not.
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That's amazing.
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So that's that's incredible.
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But it's it's you know, when when I look back not only on my career, but on the career of all the authors I've interviewed and my friends and working with aspiring writers, you know, the possibility of making it as a writer at any level is really a long shot.
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Um so for him to have this looking at you, be like, oh, well, if he can do it, which and the reality of it is almost nobody can do it.
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It well, it is a long shot, and it is unlikely.
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But when I was growing up, my father, our father, but Todd's nine years younger than me.
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My father was a television anchor man at the time.
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Todd was an adult.
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My dad was an anchorman anymore, or not adult, but older.
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So my dad was on TV every night, and he talked like this all the time, like he was on the air, even at home.
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He spoke like he was on television.
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I love it.
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And he had the same insincere smile on his face that I have right now.
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So seeing my dad on TV every night made the idea of working in TV unattainable, even though my dad was in the journalism side.
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Right.
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My mom was a gossip columnist and a society editor for what was then called the Contra Costa Times.
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So the idea of making a career as a writer wasn't something that seemed unattainable to me.
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Right.
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So I just assumed it was possible to do both, even though I went in a different direction.
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Right.
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You were drawn in by the TV side of it all.
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Well, I put myself through school as a journalist, writing about the entertainment industry for a whole bunch of publications, and I had a journalism professor at UCLA who wrote thrillers, and he and I became friends, and I would give him my thoughts on his manuscripts.
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And one day his publisher came to him and said, We'd like you to write a men's action adventure series, which is sort of at the time the male equivalent of the Harlequin romance.
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They had titles like The Destroyer, The Executioner, The Interloper, The Drooler, The Defecator, The Erector, whatever.
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And they all had a cover with a uh a guy with a six-pack and a big gun and women with big hooters behind him and explosions.
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And you and you found these at Finer 7-Elevens and grocery stores around the country.
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Right.
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So he said that he wasn't hungry enough, desperate enough, or stupid enough to write one of these books, but he knew somebody who was, and he recommended me.
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And I ended up writing a book called 357 Vigilante while I was still in college.
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It became a huge bestseller, and that started my authoring career, my book career.
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So that's fascinating to me.
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First of all, because the and the and as you found out, the reality of it is sure, maybe this is a a pulpy book, but it's in every 7-Eleven.
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It's in every it can sell a tremendous amount of mass paperback copies, obviously.
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I was fortunate, or it's terrible to say fortunate, but the week my vigilante book came out was the week Bernard Guess blew away three muggers on a New York subway train.
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Right.
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So Vigilantes were hot.
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My book became an overnight bestseller.
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New World Pictures bought the movie rights and hired me to write the script.
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And you're in college.
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And this is all in college.
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Yeah, just like the last year or so of college.
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So I I had graduated from college.
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To make a very long story short, the publishing company went bankrupt before my first royalty check was due.
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And the movie didn't get made.
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So my what I thought, my career as an author, my career as a screenwriter, dead.
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Yeah.
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And I went back to journalism and I was writing about the entertainment industry for a television trade publication and uh with a good friend of mine, uh William Rabkin, and he and I wrote a spec, Spencer for Hire, which is how you get TV.
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You know, because we like the show, but um, you know, we we had our own take on it.
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And we wrote this spec Spencer for Hire.
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And what you're supposed to do with a spec script is to send it to other shows.
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They see with your spec how well you captured the voice of a show they know, and they think, oh, maybe that writer can capture the voice of my show.
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And you get interviews about perhaps freelance writing episodes of other shows.
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My TV agent at the time, who I'd inherited from my book agent, was a newbie, and she didn't know the one basic rule of television spec scripts, is you never send the spec to the show you're specing.
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Yeah, I never would have known that.
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If you write a spec Law and Order, the one thing you don't want to do is send it to Law and Order because they will read the script and just see all the mistakes you've made.
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Right.
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Whereas if you send it to somebody else at CSI or the rookie or whatever, they're just gonna read it like a viewer of those shows and say, Oh, this writer really captured the show.
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It sounds like an episode of that show, they could do this for me.
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She stupidly sent it to Spencer for hire.
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As it turns out, they had a script fall through, they were up against a wall, and the executive producer of the show had all these uh sample scripts in his office.
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And he saw one that actually said Spencer for Hire on the side.
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And he pulled it out and he read it and he decided to buy it and shoot it.
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So he called up Bill and I and he said, I just read your Spencer script, and we'd like to shoot it next week if that's okay with you.
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We don't want to change the work.
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Do you have ideas for other scripts?
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And we said, Yes, yes, and we ended up writing more episodes of Spencer for Hire, quit our job of the TV trade publication, and a 20 some odd wash, I'm still on TV, but the height of my career was I just 20-year-long career writing and producing TV shows, that began it.
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And I kind of put the books aside for a while.
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And I think you know, a casual listener can can hear these stories and be like, well, you fell into a lot of good luck.
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And maybe there's a little bit of that, but I think what we're glossing over a little bit is the fact that you had to be able to write well.
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So I so for example, I would take it a step further.
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Yeah, because people have said to me so many times, oh, you were so lucky you had these lucky breaks.
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No, you have to put yourself in a position for those lucky breaks to happen.
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Right.
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I put I worked on the student newspaper, my advisor was writing thrillers, I became friends with him to learn more about thrillers.
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He had this opportunity come to him, he didn't want to do, but he knew me.
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Right.
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So you had to put yourself in a place where that could happen.
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Totally.
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If you don't, I'll give you an example that's not that's not me.
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Um there was this this I probably shouldn't use her name.
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We'll call her Sue.
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There was this writer, Sue, and she was part of a writer's group at a Barnes and Noble, people who wanted to break into television.
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And she wrote a spec Six Feet Under, and she had an agent.
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And that agent happened to send that spec Six Feet Under to me when I was producing a show.
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Uh it was called Missing.
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And I read this Six Feet Under and I thought it was great.
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Right.
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And to capture the voice of Six Feet Under is a talent.
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So I I invited her in to pitch episodes of the show.
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And I liked her voice, but I didn't like the ideas that she was pitching.
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But we came up with something and we hired her to write a spec script.
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So suddenly Sue was able to go back to her friends, the aspiring writers at the Barnes and Noble, to say, Hey, I just sold this, I'm getting an assignment on Missing.
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And they were able to learn through her what that experience was like.
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Well, we liked that script so much we hired her on staff.
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Wow.
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So suddenly these friends at the Barnes and Noble had a friend who was in the business.
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Yeah.
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And to make a long story short, these authors, these writers, by by just meeting up at that Barnes and Noble and sharing their passion for writing, put themselves in a position to not only have luck happen, but to have connections in the industry.
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You can't just sit in your house in Arkansas and write stuff and expect to sell it if you don't put yourself in a position to have good luck happen to you.
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Like go to voucher con or left coast crime so you can meet other authors and and fans.
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Or you just need to put yourself in a position where luck or opportunities, I should say, might come your way.
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Absolutely.
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I mean, one of the the the genesis of this podcast was now I get to know all these cool people.
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And you know, who knows what becomes of that?
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In addition to kind of just learning their pearls of wisdom as I talk to them.
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Um, I'm curious about like you said, I I I'm going back to your your your your pulp fiction novel that that blew up because I I think again a casual listener might say, well, maybe that's not so hard to write.
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That's not the reality of it all.
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You still have to make a very astute story that that that hits the zeitgeist of those readers who want a very expectant kind of a thing.
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Um, was that did you find with your journalism background and also working with the thriller writer, like, oh, this this was easier than I thought, or was it like this is still a lot of work?
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No, at the time I thought it was much easier than I thought because I had read lots of books.
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I had although I had not written a published novel, I had written novels that were just sitting in in my drawer.
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You know, I okay, but that's a big difference.
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You had the muscle.
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I had I I had written novels since I was a kid.
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I mean, when I was like a little kid, I wrote a book called Um Tomorrow's Warrior about this guy from the future who was born in an underwater sperm bank.
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I have no idea why it was underwater or how you what's the benefit of that?
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It sounds like who came here and became a hero.
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I wrote another novel called The Perfect Sinner that was just a rip-off of the saint.
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Yeah, um, I wrote all kinds of books, so I was practicing and I was devouring books.
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So, like I said, I put myself in a position, but not only that, by working in journalism, I learned about writing a compelling lead.
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Right, I learned about being edited, I learned about organizing dialogue to tell a story, I learned all sorts of skills.
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You're being pithy because you don't have a lot of space in journalism.
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Exactly.
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And that's I I glossed over this, but this is how I put myself through college.
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I was writing for lots of magazines.
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You United Press International, American Film, Los Angeles Times Syndicate, Playgirl.
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I mean, I was writing for a ton of magazines to pay my tuition in addition to working on the Daily Bruin.
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And to talk about putting yourself in a position for good luck to happen, all my articles were about the entertainment industry.
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So I went out and interviewed my favorite authors, my favorite screenwriters, my favorite producers, and under the guise of interviewing them, I was getting a this term's overused today, but a masterclass in television screenwriting and publishing by going to the people who were most successful doing it and interviewing them.
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I was able to use this license to get into their offices and get to glean knowledge I never would have gotten before.
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So when this opportunity landed in my lap, I was more than ready to take advantage of it.
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And I wrote this book that was for what it was a very good book and got great reviews.
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Uh magazine no longer exists called the West Coast Review of Books, said it was the best crime novel of the year and far better than you know these other kinds of men's action adventure novels.
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And it sold great.
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And the next three books in the series, uh, two books in the series sold great as well.
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So it and you know, when I sold the screenwrites, I ended up writing the screenplay.
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And although it didn't get made, I learned all about writing scripts.
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So and then at that point, did you have this taste of like it almost it almost feels like there's a crossroads, right?
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Which direction am I gonna go?
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Because I've done both now.
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Um, even though we both know you can do both at the same time.
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I didn't know that at the time.
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It's a lot of work, but what what was your what was your intuition at that point?
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Well, the crossroads was when I sold the Spencer for higher spec when Bill and I sold it.
00:17:15.599 --> 00:17:19.680
I keep saying I I, but I had a writing partner in television at the time.
00:17:19.839 --> 00:17:26.319
Um we sold that script, it was more money than I was earning working for the television trade publication and freelancing.
00:17:26.480 --> 00:17:30.480
So I just stopped doing journalism, wrote those those scripts.
00:17:30.720 --> 00:17:34.799
Um and so that TV I I should I should backtrack.
00:17:34.960 --> 00:17:36.079
Let me backtrack a little bit.
00:17:36.319 --> 00:17:45.200
When I sold the um screenwrites to the uh 357 Vigilante novel New World Pictures, I had no screenwriting experience.
00:17:45.519 --> 00:17:51.359
My good friend Bill Rabkin, who was the review editor for the Daily Bruin, was a graduate in the screenwriting program.
00:17:51.519 --> 00:17:54.319
So I said, why don't you and I team up to write this script?
00:17:55.119 --> 00:17:59.839
So he and I together wrote the Vigilante movie script that didn't get made.
00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:03.359
And he and I together wrote the Spencer for Hire spec script.
00:18:03.519 --> 00:18:09.200
So I had teamed up with someone who had the knowledge of writing screenplays, and what I brought to the party was a job.
00:18:09.519 --> 00:18:16.319
And then from there, you know, Bill and I wrote the Spencer for Hire, and you know, I I we both quit writing for journalism.
00:18:16.559 --> 00:18:20.319
And for the next 20 years, we were employed at television writer producers.
00:18:20.559 --> 00:18:28.480
We we wrote and produced Sequest and Cosby Mysteries and Missing, and we worked on Hunter and a million shows.
00:18:28.880 --> 00:18:34.559
Probably our biggest credit was we spent many years as the executive producers and principal writers of Diagnosis Murder.
00:18:34.720 --> 00:18:36.480
So we we did a lot of TV.
00:18:36.880 --> 00:18:42.079
Um and it was only for a while, that was all I thought I could do with TV.
00:18:42.400 --> 00:18:49.440
And in the middle of our television writing-producing career, um how did it come about?
00:18:49.519 --> 00:18:50.240
I'm trying to remember.
00:18:50.400 --> 00:18:56.480
Oh, yes, uh, Bill and I wrote an episode of a short-lived TV show called Likely Suspects on Fox.
00:18:56.799 --> 00:19:02.240
And Likely Suspects got nominated for an Edgar Award for Best Television Show.
00:19:03.039 --> 00:19:09.839
And my literary agent, who I had not heard from for years, an agent, by the way, that I inherited from my um journalism professor.
00:19:10.079 --> 00:19:10.559
Oh, wow.
00:19:11.200 --> 00:19:16.240
When I got that that uh that gig writing those vigilante novels, I hadn't heard from him in years.
00:19:16.319 --> 00:19:18.880
And he said, Lee, are you familiar with an Edgar is?
00:19:18.960 --> 00:19:20.000
I said, No, no.
00:19:20.559 --> 00:19:23.200
He said, Well, it's like the Oscar of mystery writing.
00:19:23.519 --> 00:19:29.200
On the basis of this Edgar nomination, I could get you a book deal somewhere.
00:19:29.440 --> 00:19:30.480
Have you written a book?
00:19:30.640 --> 00:19:32.640
I said, No, I've been writing all these TV shows.
00:19:32.720 --> 00:19:40.400
He says, Well, if you write a couple sample chapters and an outline, I can get you a book deal by the end of the month.
00:19:40.720 --> 00:19:42.799
And what kind of time period are we talking about?
00:19:42.880 --> 00:19:47.039
That's that's that's uh this is about 1992, somewhere in there.
00:19:47.119 --> 00:19:47.680
Is that what you mean?
00:19:47.839 --> 00:19:52.319
So by years from when you first wrote Yeah, the books came out in the mid-80s.
00:19:52.400 --> 00:19:58.559
Yeah, I became a TV writer, and then in the early 90s, I got this um Edgar Award nomination.
00:19:58.640 --> 00:19:59.440
Oh, okay.
00:19:59.680 --> 00:20:07.039
And this the you know, the TV, uh the uh book agent Mel Berger and William Morris kind of came out of the woodwork and said, Hey, I still represent you.
00:20:07.200 --> 00:20:10.160
We can leverage this Edgar nomination into a book deal.
00:20:10.319 --> 00:20:15.200
So at the time I was up in Canada working on a terrible TV series called Cobra.
00:20:15.279 --> 00:20:16.880
I hated the show, I hated the star.
00:20:16.960 --> 00:20:18.160
I was a supervising producer.
00:20:18.400 --> 00:20:20.079
Was that related to the movie at all?
00:20:20.319 --> 00:20:26.319
No, not related to the to the uh Sylvester Stallone movie, but did star Michael Dudakoff, who was the American ninja.
00:20:26.640 --> 00:20:33.279
Um I was in a hotel room in Canada away from my family, so I had some time to kill.
00:20:33.440 --> 00:20:38.160
I quickly wrote a sample chapters for a book called My Gun Has Bullet Bullets.
00:20:38.480 --> 00:20:41.279
The mob brings their style of doing business to TV.
00:20:41.440 --> 00:20:43.519
They don't cancel shows, they kill them.
00:20:43.680 --> 00:20:47.680
And I just wrote this kind of romp about what happens when the mob gets into TV.
00:20:48.319 --> 00:20:51.759
Damn, if Mel didn't get me a three-book deal with uh St.
00:20:51.920 --> 00:20:54.319
Martin's Press, you just got the mightiest touch.
00:20:54.480 --> 00:21:06.079
So I wrote this book called My Gun Has Bullets, and then when I was doing Sequest, I wrote a sequel called Beyond the Beyond about science fiction fans who start murdering people, and that got me back into the publishing.
00:21:06.160 --> 00:21:11.200
Those books didn't do too well, but years later, I mentioned Diagnosis Murder.
00:21:11.680 --> 00:21:19.519
Um the murder she wrote books were doing so well for Penguin Putnam that they wanted a series to go alongside of it.
00:21:19.680 --> 00:21:25.839
And they thought that Diagnosis Murder would be a perfect companion piece to the murder she wrote books they were doing.
00:21:26.079 --> 00:21:30.960
And they looked into it and discovered that the executive producer of Diagnosis Murder was a published novelist.
00:21:31.200 --> 00:21:34.960
So they offered me a three or four book deal to write Diagnosis Murder novels.
00:21:35.359 --> 00:21:39.599
So I ended up writing, I think it was eight Diagnosis Murder novels.
00:21:39.759 --> 00:21:45.839
And then later on, when I was working on Monk, a publisher approached the creator of Monk about doing monk novels.
00:21:45.920 --> 00:21:55.680
He said, I don't want to do monk novels, but uh Lee Goldberg, who's a writer on our show, if he wants to do monk novels, and I ended up writing 15 monk novels at the same time I was doing TV.
00:21:55.920 --> 00:21:59.759
So there was a point in my career where I had turned away from books.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:02.480
But then it kind of converged with Diagnosis Murder.
00:22:02.640 --> 00:22:02.720
Right.
00:22:03.279 --> 00:22:06.400
You're still doing your your your work in the in the industry.
00:22:06.640 --> 00:22:07.039
Yes.
00:22:07.200 --> 00:22:07.440
Yeah.
00:22:07.680 --> 00:22:18.240
And then um I I don't think we have to get into the whole chronology, but at some point down the line, um our daughter, my my daughter Maddie was going off to college.
00:22:18.400 --> 00:22:23.920
I only have one daughter, and my wife said to me, Look, Maddie's going off to college, we'll have an empty nest.
00:22:24.160 --> 00:22:27.759
If you keep doing TV, I'm gonna be alone.
00:22:28.079 --> 00:22:30.720
You know, because if you keep doing TV, you're gonna be doing TV all day.
00:22:30.880 --> 00:22:34.640
Come home, we'll have dinner, and then I'll see you're back because you're writing books.
00:22:35.839 --> 00:22:41.039
Is it possible for you to make a living just doing books and maybe a script or two?
00:22:41.359 --> 00:22:42.079
Basically, we're talking about it.
00:22:42.240 --> 00:22:46.319
So it wasn't even like one or the other, it's like her preference was that you're home writing books.
00:22:46.480 --> 00:22:52.400
Yes, yes, because then we and our we're together, and no one's looking over our shoulder about where we are.
00:22:52.559 --> 00:23:01.359
So I took out a lot yellow legal pad and we did some math, and I'd be keeping making a lot less money, but we could still live on it, and that's what we ended up doing.
00:23:01.680 --> 00:23:03.119
How long ago was that?
00:23:03.359 --> 00:23:05.359
Oh, what did I say, 15 years ago?
00:23:05.519 --> 00:23:07.200
Okay, 10, 15 years ago.
00:23:07.440 --> 00:23:11.920
And my book career just started to really build, and we could talk about that.
00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:21.839
But you know, I did five books with Janet Ivanovich, and and then I kept kind of still doing TV, and I ended up co-creating a TV series for Hallmark, even though I wasn't working day-to-day on these shows.
00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:27.440
I ended up doing a movie in Germany, so I still have my finger in that world, yeah.
00:23:27.599 --> 00:23:37.200
Um, and and right now I'm talking to you from you know Northern California, where I'm working on a TV show called You're Killing Me, starring Brooke Shields, which premieres on May 18th.
00:23:37.279 --> 00:23:45.039
So, I mean, it's clear in talking to you, you've got obviously an absolute passion for storytelling, the creative process.
00:23:45.440 --> 00:23:53.279
And I'm wondering, yeah, as you're talking to me, I'm thinking like you know, you just kind of throw out like I wrote 15 monk books.
00:23:54.160 --> 00:23:59.119
You know, there was the desire, there was the demand for those monk books before you wrote them.
00:23:59.359 --> 00:24:08.400
Do you ever feel like, all right, I'm doing this because there's the demand is there, as or are you just like, I can't wait to see what this guy does next.
00:24:08.559 --> 00:24:11.119
I can't wait to create new worlds for this character.
00:24:11.440 --> 00:24:13.119
There was no demand for the monk books.
00:24:13.279 --> 00:24:21.440
The only demand for them was the publisher thought we might make a buck that maybe original novels based on monk would do well because the TV series was doing well, and that happened to work.
00:24:21.519 --> 00:24:23.599
But you're right, I knew there was an audience there for it.
00:24:23.680 --> 00:24:33.200
Yeah, now I was writing my own novels, not connected to any TV show, and even the books with Janet, we had no idea if there'd be readers for it.
00:24:33.359 --> 00:24:33.440
Right.
00:24:33.680 --> 00:24:39.440
The books I'm writing now, the book that I have coming up June 1st, you know, Murder by Design, I have no idea if anyone's gonna be able to do it.
00:24:39.599 --> 00:24:42.799
Which is at the start of a whole new series, so it's that's gotta be even more stressful.
00:24:43.200 --> 00:24:46.720
Yeah, I mean, I write now for two reasons.
00:24:47.200 --> 00:24:49.279
One, it's how I make a living.
00:24:49.599 --> 00:24:53.279
If I don't write books and scripts, I can't pay my mortgage.
00:24:53.680 --> 00:24:54.799
It is how I make a living.
00:24:54.880 --> 00:25:01.440
It is not a diversion, it's not uh artistic pursuit, it is my job.
00:25:01.680 --> 00:25:05.279
If I don't write, money doesn't come in, bills don't get paid.
00:25:05.519 --> 00:25:05.759
Right.
00:25:06.319 --> 00:25:08.240
Retirement fund doesn't, you know.
00:25:08.480 --> 00:25:10.000
It is my profession.
00:25:10.559 --> 00:25:13.920
But the truth is I have to write.
00:25:14.079 --> 00:25:14.880
It's who I am.
00:25:15.039 --> 00:25:16.960
I've been writing since I was a child.
00:25:17.279 --> 00:25:21.599
If I get irritable, sometimes my wife will say to me, if I'm irritable, go write something.
00:25:21.680 --> 00:25:24.559
You know, it's if I'm not writing something, I'm not happy.
00:25:24.720 --> 00:25:27.039
Yeah, it is sort of my form of therapy.
00:25:27.279 --> 00:25:31.519
Yes, we have to go back to what you said earlier about you know, was writing hard when I said no.
00:25:31.599 --> 00:25:33.200
Well, that was before I became a professional.
00:25:33.440 --> 00:25:36.079
Writing is very, very hard for me.
00:25:36.160 --> 00:25:43.039
Yeah, I thought it would get easier after writing literally 70 novels and hundreds and hundreds of TV scripts.
00:25:43.279 --> 00:25:46.480
No, it's just gotten harder because I don't want to repeat myself.
00:25:46.640 --> 00:25:46.720
Right.
00:25:46.960 --> 00:25:53.839
And I also know there that when you write a television show, you're not just writing what you want to write.
00:25:54.079 --> 00:26:03.039
You have to write something that can be shot in eight or nine days with a certain number of days on the sound stage, certain number of days on location for a certain amount of money.
00:26:03.519 --> 00:26:07.920
There are all kinds of things that impact the story that have nothing to do with storytelling.
00:26:08.400 --> 00:26:16.960
When you write a book, you have to satisfy, in my case, an existing audience and the needs of the publisher and uh deadlines and all that.
00:26:17.200 --> 00:26:21.279
There are all kinds of pressures on you that have nothing to do with a story.
00:26:21.359 --> 00:26:26.960
And if I'm writing, for instance, one of my Eve Ronan novels, it's a lot like writing an episode of a TV show.
00:26:27.119 --> 00:26:29.599
It has to be the same show every week, only different.
00:26:29.759 --> 00:26:34.000
You have to deliver what the readers want, but it has to be different enough that it feels new.
00:26:34.400 --> 00:26:36.000
That's a huge pressure, right?
00:26:36.160 --> 00:26:38.480
So, and you also don't want to repeat yourself.
00:26:38.640 --> 00:26:45.920
So there's a lot of craft that goes into writing for me now, and a lot of passion and a lot of creativity, but also a lot of business.
00:26:46.079 --> 00:26:48.720
Yeah, totally a lot of other stuff, politics.
00:26:48.960 --> 00:26:52.559
How do you know you're not repeating yourself with that many books?
00:26:52.640 --> 00:26:57.359
Because even with my 11 books, I'm like, I this like this phrase.
00:26:57.440 --> 00:27:02.880
I know I've used this weird phrase, I know I've used kind of the way that this character kind of walks through life.
00:27:03.839 --> 00:27:07.759
So do you almost have like a wiki wiki that you can go and Google to see?
00:27:07.920 --> 00:27:09.920
Have I written about this before?
00:27:10.240 --> 00:27:18.319
Well, I don't have a wiki like that, but I have I have the benefit of a lot of people who wouldn't written Wikipedia pages about the books I've written.
00:27:18.559 --> 00:27:24.559
Um, when I am writing a book for the same let's well, let's use the Eve Ronan series as an example.
00:27:24.799 --> 00:27:36.720
The copy editor, when they when he or she does their copy edit, they list all the characters and who they are, what their relationships are, and also who's driving what car and all that kind of thing, and a chronology.
00:27:36.960 --> 00:27:41.359
In each subsequent book, the next copy editor, the same copy editor, adds on to that.
00:27:41.599 --> 00:27:50.640
So I just got the um copy edit on my next Eve Ronan novel, and it came with the copy editor's document, but also what essentially was a Bible.
00:27:50.799 --> 00:27:52.880
Yeah, I can list everything that came before.
00:27:52.960 --> 00:28:01.680
So with Eve Ronan, maybe it doesn't list phrases and dialogue and plot situations I've done before, but it does help me find my way.
00:28:01.839 --> 00:28:06.720
But I remember one time I was writing a monk, and the scene was just flowing so well.
00:28:06.799 --> 00:28:08.799
I was so in touch with my muse.
00:28:08.960 --> 00:28:10.400
Oh, it's so easy.
00:28:10.480 --> 00:28:12.000
I'm just channeling it so well.
00:28:12.079 --> 00:28:15.119
And I realized it's because I've written it before.
00:28:15.440 --> 00:28:16.720
I've written it before.
00:28:16.880 --> 00:28:25.759
And you know, I but this is by the same token, I've probably written a thousand scenes at a crime scene after a murder's been discovered.
00:28:25.920 --> 00:28:28.960
Yeah, what am I gonna do that's new?
00:28:29.119 --> 00:28:29.359
Right.
00:28:29.599 --> 00:28:34.160
Every time I do a police procedural mystery, I have the scene at the scene and I dread it.
00:28:34.240 --> 00:28:34.400
Yeah.
00:28:34.559 --> 00:28:35.759
Because what am I gonna do there?
00:28:36.240 --> 00:28:40.559
I guess technology evolves and and and they come to the scene carrying different things, maybe.
00:28:40.640 --> 00:28:41.440
I don't know.
00:28:41.920 --> 00:28:50.640
No, the the way into it is not to look at the crime, not to look at what you were talking about, forensics or anything.
00:28:50.799 --> 00:28:52.000
It's about character.
00:28:52.240 --> 00:28:55.519
Yeah, what is the conflict for my character in this scene?
00:28:55.680 --> 00:28:58.079
What is the challenge for my character in this scene?
00:28:58.240 --> 00:29:03.359
What about this scene will reveal aspects of the character we haven't seen before?
00:29:03.519 --> 00:29:15.119
So I have to go into the scene, not caring about plot or about forensics or any of that, but what is it about this scene that's going to show me something new about the character?
00:29:15.200 --> 00:29:18.640
Because the fact is, readers don't come to books for plot.
00:29:18.720 --> 00:29:22.559
They come to it because they're in a series novel, they come to it for the characters.
00:29:22.720 --> 00:29:22.799
Right.
00:29:23.039 --> 00:29:27.839
So you have to make sure that every scene and every book is revealing the character in a different way.
00:29:27.920 --> 00:29:30.720
And that's the challenge of episodic television.
00:29:30.799 --> 00:29:35.039
It's particularly a show like Monk or Ellsbeth, where you're dealing with a character.
00:29:35.279 --> 00:29:37.519
We don't approach it with what is the murder.
00:29:37.680 --> 00:29:48.240
We approach what can we do to this character that will give us new humor, new drama, and new, new sides that we haven't seen before and make us more interested in him or her.
00:29:48.480 --> 00:29:48.640
Right.
00:29:48.720 --> 00:29:56.559
What is what is the lead detective actually thinking about a distracted by that's not allowing him to focus on the scene because something else is going on in this?
00:29:56.960 --> 00:29:59.759
Or what does the scene reveal to him about his own problems?
00:29:59.839 --> 00:30:10.400
Or what do his problems help him solve the case, which is usually the situation with Monk, you know, where his obsessive impulsive obsessive compulsive disorder is his superpower, right?
00:30:10.640 --> 00:30:15.440
It's his it's his weakness and the bane of his existence, but it's also what allows him to solve a case.
00:30:15.599 --> 00:30:21.519
So whatever is his problem in his life will actually give him the insights he needs to solve the crime.
00:30:21.759 --> 00:30:24.079
So we're always dealing with that.
00:30:24.240 --> 00:30:37.839
And if when you read my book, Murder by Design, the interaction between the the detective and his assistant and the situations, that's the fun, but it's also going to be what reveals who the killer is and allows him to solve the crime.
00:30:38.000 --> 00:30:38.160
Right.
00:30:38.400 --> 00:30:47.759
I always approach every scene, every book, every plot from character first, not interesting mystery.
00:30:48.000 --> 00:30:49.039
The mystery will come.
00:30:49.279 --> 00:30:49.920
Right, right.
00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:55.440
And and the mystery is something that the reader or the watcher is always going to know is going to be there.
00:30:55.519 --> 00:30:56.559
They're not worried about that.
00:30:56.640 --> 00:30:56.880
Right.
00:30:57.359 --> 00:31:04.960
Um, but I also find it interesting that you know you have these two mediums that have, you know, obviously a massive Venn diagram overlap.
00:31:05.279 --> 00:31:18.319
But I always think about, you know, for example, with a TV show or a film, one establishing shot can fill in pages of narrative if it's done right.
00:31:18.960 --> 00:31:28.720
But also with a book, you know, you can have this internal monologue that does maybe not, you're not going to hit them over the head, but you're revealing stuff that that camera shot can't do.
00:31:28.880 --> 00:31:39.440
So do you have to get into almost a little bit of a different mindset when you're writing a script versus, or you know, when you were writing a script versus a novel?
00:31:39.759 --> 00:31:40.880
I'm I do that right now.
00:31:40.960 --> 00:31:43.359
I mean, I'm writing a script by day and a and a book by night.
00:31:43.519 --> 00:31:43.839
Yeah.
00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:48.000
There are two different muscles, entirely different muscles, as you just pointed out.
00:31:48.319 --> 00:31:50.960
A screenplay is not prose.
00:31:51.200 --> 00:31:54.079
A screenplay is more like the blueprint for a house.
00:31:54.240 --> 00:31:54.799
Right.
00:31:55.039 --> 00:32:09.359
So your script is the document from which other professionals, the location manager, the wardrobe person, the cinematographer, the director, the actors, the set builders, everyone else is reading to do their jobs.
00:32:09.839 --> 00:32:12.000
And they're going to bring their insights into it as well.
00:32:12.079 --> 00:32:13.759
So it's their interpretation.
00:32:14.160 --> 00:32:18.880
It's a blueprint for building a house, it's a blueprint for building a television show.
00:32:19.039 --> 00:32:22.799
But here's the other thing about a movie or a TV episode.
00:32:23.279 --> 00:32:27.680
Everything has to come out through action or dialogue.
00:32:27.839 --> 00:32:30.720
If you don't see it or hear it, it doesn't exist.
00:32:30.880 --> 00:32:31.039
Right.
00:32:31.200 --> 00:32:33.599
It's a different way of telling a story.
00:32:33.839 --> 00:32:38.079
And in television, you only have 44 minutes for an hour-long show.
00:32:38.640 --> 00:32:44.720
In a movie, a typical movie, you only have 110-page script, you know, two hours or whatever, you know, 90 minutes.
00:32:45.039 --> 00:32:53.920
So every scene has to move the story forward and reveal character and have conflict, and it all has to come out naturally in dialogue.
00:32:54.160 --> 00:33:03.599
There is a danger in writing books that where you can just blurt out this exposition, like you just said, in prose, explain stuff.
00:33:03.759 --> 00:33:07.519
There is nothing more dull than exposition.
00:33:07.839 --> 00:33:18.640
So I have found that my screenwriting experience makes my books, in my view, better than they would be if I wasn't a screenwriter.
00:33:18.960 --> 00:33:28.480
Because I try to find ways to have the story come out through action and dialogue rather than through internal monologues, which are lengthy descriptions.
00:33:28.640 --> 00:33:28.960
Yeah.
00:33:29.359 --> 00:33:30.559
I I think it's cheating.
00:33:30.720 --> 00:33:31.839
I think it's boring.
00:33:32.000 --> 00:33:34.480
Um, I'm not writing literature, I'm writing entertainment.
00:33:34.880 --> 00:33:39.680
And I learned a very important lesson from Janet Ivanovich when I was working with her.
00:33:39.920 --> 00:33:43.680
She said, I want readers to forget they're reading.
00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:48.640
I want them to be so lost in what they're doing, they forget there's a page.
00:33:48.880 --> 00:33:49.119
Right.
00:33:49.359 --> 00:33:52.799
If you write something clever in prose, it pulls you out.
00:33:52.880 --> 00:33:57.599
It says, Oh, look at me, I'm writing a clever line, and it reminds people that they're reading a book.
00:33:57.759 --> 00:34:08.960
You want the writing to disappear, and if you have something clever to say or an observation to make, if it can't be put into the brief head, brief thought of the character or in dialogue, it gets cut.
00:34:09.599 --> 00:34:11.039
That was a revelation to me.
00:34:11.440 --> 00:34:25.599
And it's true, but it's interesting because you also, uh along with your brother, have an you know, astounding sense of humor which fits your character, so it doesn't feel like it stands out, but it can if you're not too careful, right?
00:34:25.679 --> 00:34:26.880
But the humor is fine.
00:34:27.440 --> 00:34:35.039
If you look at Todd versus me, if you pick up his book, one thing you'll notice with Todd's books is much longer paragraphs than mine.
00:34:35.119 --> 00:34:35.360
Yeah.
00:34:35.599 --> 00:34:41.440
And if you read Todd's books, there's a whole bunch of humor in the authorial voice, in the prose.
00:34:41.840 --> 00:34:47.599
If you look at my books, the authorial voice will be present in the first pair.
00:34:47.920 --> 00:34:49.119
When I'm let me back that up.
00:34:49.199 --> 00:34:56.800
If I'm writing a book in third person, the authorial voice will only be in the first few paragraphs of the first chapter.
00:34:57.039 --> 00:35:03.039
And after that, the authorial voice will disappear because I don't want to remind you you're reading.
00:35:03.280 --> 00:35:07.039
And I will put anything clever in the mouth or mind of my characters.
00:35:07.280 --> 00:35:09.519
So it just becomes very dialogue-heavy.
00:35:09.920 --> 00:35:16.000
Well, no, it's just I don't want people to remember their reading, I want them to get sucked into just being lost in the book.
00:35:16.159 --> 00:35:20.400
I want the really move, I want to be like an experience of seeing a movie or TV show in your head.
00:35:21.039 --> 00:35:22.400
Todd's more literary.
00:35:22.480 --> 00:35:23.119
He wants that.
00:35:23.199 --> 00:35:24.559
He he lives for the prose.
00:35:24.800 --> 00:35:25.599
I don't.
00:35:25.920 --> 00:35:40.320
On the other hand, the book that I have coming out June 1st, Murder by Design, is told first person from the point of view of Edison Dixby's assistant, Wally Nash, this aspiring actor who's not very good at acting.
00:35:40.880 --> 00:35:42.639
Everything is from Wally's point of view.
00:35:42.719 --> 00:35:47.280
So the prose is full of personality and humor because everything is filtered through Wally.
00:35:47.599 --> 00:35:47.760
Right.
00:35:47.920 --> 00:35:54.880
So then I just have to be careful that what I'm writing is actually interesting character stuff and not exposition.
00:35:55.119 --> 00:35:55.199
Right.
00:35:55.360 --> 00:35:59.199
Which is a hard thing to judge when you're in the middle of a book, I think.
00:35:59.599 --> 00:36:01.280
I don't judge it in the middle of the book.
00:36:01.519 --> 00:36:03.360
I write outlines before I start writing.
00:36:03.599 --> 00:36:05.119
I know exactly where I'm going.
00:36:05.280 --> 00:36:08.880
I don't want to have the problem in the middle of the book of trying to figure out what the book is.
00:36:09.039 --> 00:36:09.360
Yeah.
00:36:09.599 --> 00:36:10.719
I want to know all right.
00:36:11.440 --> 00:36:14.400
When I sit down to write, I want to know what I'm sitting down to write.
00:36:14.559 --> 00:36:19.679
That doesn't mean I'm slavishly loyal to my outline, but I don't make it up as I go along.
00:36:19.840 --> 00:36:21.199
Yeah, I have a plan.
00:36:21.440 --> 00:36:23.280
And that becomes a thing in TV.
00:36:23.519 --> 00:36:23.840
Right.
00:36:24.079 --> 00:36:29.119
In television, you have to write an outline, get the outline approved by the network and studio.
00:36:29.280 --> 00:36:37.840
And then while you're writing the script, there's a bunch of people who are building sets and looking for actors and locations and everything and budgeting based on your outline.
00:36:38.000 --> 00:36:41.440
So you have to deliver a script that matches the outline.
00:36:41.599 --> 00:36:42.320
You have to.
00:36:42.559 --> 00:36:42.880
Right.
00:36:43.119 --> 00:36:44.239
What do you think?
00:36:44.320 --> 00:36:48.559
You know, based on your, you know, I guess uh the entirety of your career.
00:36:48.719 --> 00:36:58.960
Uh, you know, I when I hear you talking, I'm thinking about how things have changed, but particularly in the TV industry over time, but obviously clearly in literature and novels as well.
00:36:59.199 --> 00:37:01.679
And I think about attention span with readers.
00:37:01.760 --> 00:37:17.599
So the way that you describe your writing, I think fits very well with how a lot of modern readers are consuming things, in that they're not going to have the patience for pages and pages and pages of exposition where they might have in the 70s and the 80s.
00:37:17.760 --> 00:37:20.320
But do you see your readership changing over time?
00:37:20.480 --> 00:37:24.559
Do you have, or do you see like these people have been with me the entire time?
00:37:24.639 --> 00:37:27.440
And I'm picking up younger readers as well.
00:37:27.920 --> 00:37:38.079
I believe you're right that the way audiences are approaching entertainment has changed with streaming, with TikTok, with YouTube, everything moves faster.
00:37:38.159 --> 00:37:46.000
And I don't think readers of popular fiction, of commercial fiction, have a low whole lot of patience for things dragging on.
00:37:46.079 --> 00:37:47.519
I don't need to be caught up in.
00:37:47.679 --> 00:37:53.760
Also, I don't think people have the time anymore, for the most part, young people, to sit down and read in one sitting.
00:37:53.840 --> 00:37:54.000
Right.
00:37:54.159 --> 00:37:57.039
So you have to, and I and James Patterson's the master of this.
00:37:57.280 --> 00:38:00.159
You have to write your books in such a way that they can come at it piecemeal.
00:38:00.239 --> 00:38:00.400
Right.
00:38:00.639 --> 00:38:05.840
They can read it on the subway train in the morning and on the subway train going home, or read parts of it in the airplane and always.
00:38:08.159 --> 00:38:11.760
That you want to engage them while they're there, but leave them hanging so they'll come back.
00:38:11.920 --> 00:38:16.719
And you don't want them to have to remember so much stuff that they can't engage when they do come back a day later.
00:38:17.119 --> 00:38:26.400
So, yes, I am very much aware that the pacing of uh to hold a reader's attention, you have to have a very rapid pace.
00:38:26.639 --> 00:38:34.079
And one way that I have adapted to that, because my daughter's in her late 20s, and I see the way she consumes media, right?
00:38:34.239 --> 00:38:43.119
And I if I want to hold her attention, I've got to grab her and and and and and and be compelling constantly in what I'm delivering entertainment-wise.
00:38:43.760 --> 00:38:53.440
So, what I do, and I know that television and film is more engaging in many ways for uh the audiences than reading is now.
00:38:53.679 --> 00:39:01.519
So, what I do now with my books is I write an outline and then I write my books first as a screenplay.
00:39:01.679 --> 00:39:10.719
Not to sell it, not to ever show anybody else, but I write this book as a screenplay, and I can get a screenplay out of my system in two or three weeks.
00:39:11.039 --> 00:39:13.199
So then I know if the story works.
00:39:13.760 --> 00:39:18.400
I know if the pacing works, I know if it can be told primarily through action and dialogue.
00:39:18.639 --> 00:39:23.119
And then what I'm doing then is essentially novelizing my own script.
00:39:23.280 --> 00:39:23.599
Right.
00:39:23.760 --> 00:39:47.840
But then I know it has the pace of either a four-act episode or a three-act movie, and I'm coloring between the lines, I'm revising the dialogue, but the pacing, the rhythm that I feel, almost like music or dance when writing a script, gets translated to the page, which is why I'm not saying this to boast, but if you look at reviews from my books, they all say, Oh my god, it moves so fast, it feels like reading a movie.
00:39:48.000 --> 00:39:48.320
Right.
00:39:48.480 --> 00:39:49.280
That's intentional.
00:39:49.679 --> 00:39:50.960
You are reading a movie.
00:39:51.199 --> 00:40:02.880
That's I mean, and and and I think you're right, and I think there is that tempo that you know, and and it varies scene by scene, but to me, it's these, you know, high high odd pain naturality, it's the staccato bursts.
00:40:03.039 --> 00:40:18.559
And especially if you're writing first person, a lot of incomplete sentences because it's just almost a stream of consciousness, and then it then it slows down to a coda, and um it but I think that gets I think that's innate, like or it gets developed over time.
00:40:19.039 --> 00:40:31.119
I think a lot of writers don't really have that ability to to hear the rhythm of the writing in a way that a reader would consume it at the pace that they want it to be consumed, if that makes sense at all.
00:40:31.440 --> 00:40:38.960
But I think if you talk to Lee Child, Michael Connolly, Jan Ivanovich, Harlan Coben, Robert Crace, all these bestselling writers, they do feel it.
00:40:39.039 --> 00:40:44.559
Yeah, they do know the pace, they they they do have that innate ability, and that's why those books are bestsellers.
00:40:44.719 --> 00:40:49.440
I mean, Janet told me when we first started writing together, there is a bestseller formula, and I'm gonna share it with you.
00:40:49.599 --> 00:40:51.119
I shared you with you part of it.
00:40:51.199 --> 00:40:56.159
You know, you want the writing to disappear, you want it to move like a movie, you want to show, not tell.
00:40:56.320 --> 00:40:58.079
You don't want big blocks of exposition.
00:40:58.239 --> 00:41:01.840
If you look at James Patterson, he doesn't have big blocks of exposition.
00:41:02.000 --> 00:41:03.199
He shows, he doesn't tell.
00:41:03.280 --> 00:41:07.840
You look at Janet, you look at Michael, you look at Lee Child, you look at all these people, and it's true.
00:41:08.239 --> 00:41:23.039
And it's hard for people who fall in love with their own writing to realize that you you're writing for an audience, you're writing for a marketplace, you're writing for uh if you want to be a commercial fiction success, you need to write in the commercial fiction formula.
00:41:23.199 --> 00:41:27.199
If you want to sell 2,000 books and get literary awards, well, that's something different.
00:41:27.440 --> 00:41:29.039
My brother is capable of both.
00:41:29.119 --> 00:41:33.280
He can write literature literary fiction, which gets awards but often doesn't sell at all.
00:41:33.360 --> 00:41:35.599
But he and he can also write commercial popular fiction.
00:41:36.000 --> 00:41:43.840
And don't get me wrong, I love literary fiction, I have a great taste for it, but sadly it doesn't often sell as well as it's not going to pay your mortgage.
00:41:44.000 --> 00:41:44.480
Yeah.
00:41:44.800 --> 00:41:46.559
I mean, for there are a lot of people for whom it does.
00:41:46.639 --> 00:41:47.199
Don't get me wrong.
00:41:47.280 --> 00:41:54.719
You have Ann Patchett and all these others that you know write incredible novels, John Irving and Larry McMurtry and all these people.
00:41:54.880 --> 00:42:08.320
But for the for the most part, there are a lot of literary fiction writers, uh, uh who like for instance, Tim Sandlin, who just passed away, he wrote wonderful books and they were made into movies too, but he never broke out in the big way he should have.
00:42:08.480 --> 00:42:17.920
Yeah, he was beloved by other writers and beloved by people who love the craft of writing, but he never broke out in that big way that you could, you know, really make it.
00:42:18.079 --> 00:42:19.760
Like a Cormac McCarthy might have.
00:42:19.840 --> 00:42:20.480
Yeah.
00:42:21.039 --> 00:42:21.440
Yeah.
00:42:21.599 --> 00:42:24.719
So well, I feel like I've learned a lot.
00:42:24.880 --> 00:42:26.320
So thank you for for being on this.
00:42:26.400 --> 00:42:27.039
We're going to move on.
00:42:27.199 --> 00:42:28.400
I apologize for losing my voice.
00:42:28.480 --> 00:42:30.400
I've been having some voice issues last year.
00:42:30.800 --> 00:42:31.199
You're okay.
00:42:31.360 --> 00:42:38.800
We're going to quickly wrap up with our storytelling part of the show, which I normally pick three books at random and we pick a random sentence from a random page.
00:42:38.960 --> 00:42:43.519
I read that sentence, and then that's the first sentence in like a two-minute long short story.
00:42:43.599 --> 00:42:46.719
So I read the sentence, you give me maybe the next sentence, what happens?
00:42:46.800 --> 00:42:47.599
I'll do a sentence.
00:42:47.679 --> 00:42:50.719
And when it goes off the rails, which it might not, I'll call it.
00:42:50.880 --> 00:42:52.800
Um, you actually want to write the short story.
00:42:52.880 --> 00:42:53.119
Okay.
00:42:53.280 --> 00:42:53.679
Yeah, yeah.
00:42:53.760 --> 00:42:55.599
We're actually just going to improv it.
00:42:55.679 --> 00:43:01.039
Um, but I actually, because this was literally within arm's reach of my desk, I have your brother's book here.
00:43:01.199 --> 00:43:05.280
Um, so we're going to use this um as our stepping off point.
00:43:05.599 --> 00:43:10.639
So give me a number between one and 347.
00:43:11.920 --> 00:43:13.039
222.
00:43:13.199 --> 00:43:17.760
Okay, so we're gonna look at 222, and I'm gonna just pick out a sentence that that might work for us.
00:43:17.920 --> 00:43:22.239
It's the last um page of a chapter.
00:43:22.559 --> 00:43:29.679
Um, all right, you can do whatever you want after I read this sentence with this.
00:43:29.840 --> 00:43:33.840
Um this just popped right out of the page at me.
00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:37.360
Uh the toilet was his spiritual lodestar.
00:43:38.960 --> 00:43:44.159
When he vomited into it, he saw his entire life right there swirling in the toilet bowl.
00:43:44.320 --> 00:43:48.880
He saw what he ate, he saw the drugs he consumed, he saw his own shame.
00:43:49.920 --> 00:43:58.239
And when he flushed it and stood there or sat there and waited for the water to clear, he then saw a reflection of himself.
00:43:58.639 --> 00:43:59.760
Watery, gold.
00:44:00.480 --> 00:44:06.000
Like defeated, and he knew right then what he had to do.
00:44:06.559 --> 00:44:09.679
He had to go kill the woman lying naked in his bed.
00:44:12.239 --> 00:44:13.599
She deserved it after all.
00:44:13.679 --> 00:44:15.840
She was the one who drugged him in the first place.
00:44:16.159 --> 00:44:18.079
She probably thought he was dead.
00:44:20.400 --> 00:44:26.960
If she lives, then everything that made him vomit in this toilet bowl will come true and he'll be spending the rest of his life in prison.
00:44:27.119 --> 00:44:28.400
It's a shame he loved her.
00:44:28.480 --> 00:44:34.480
The sex was incredible, but he doesn't want to spend the next 30 years in Soledad.
00:44:34.960 --> 00:44:36.400
So it has to be done.
00:44:36.800 --> 00:44:39.199
I think we call it there because that was talking.
00:44:39.280 --> 00:44:43.599
All right, talk about tight, fast-paced, right off the top of your head.
00:44:43.679 --> 00:44:47.360
You were you're one of the faster uh storytellers that I've had on the show.
00:44:47.440 --> 00:44:49.519
So that was that was fantastic.
00:44:49.760 --> 00:44:53.599
I I think that could be a whole story right there, starting with Todd's sentence.
00:44:54.159 --> 00:45:07.760
Well, Todd often is a as a um excuse me, uh, in his teaching when he was in um the extension program in UCLA, he would start with a sentence and make the whole class write a chapter from that sentence.
00:45:08.000 --> 00:45:20.800
And there was one uh one uh student he had uh who wrote a chapter from Todd's sentence and said, Todd said to him, That chapter is so good, I want you to remove the first sentence and keep writing.
00:45:21.119 --> 00:45:23.280
And that student ended up selling that novel.
00:45:23.519 --> 00:45:24.239
That's amazing.
00:45:24.400 --> 00:45:36.719
And I and Todd can tell you which which student that was, what the novel was, but that was a prompt he gave his students every year was he would just give them a sentence that he made up that morning and and and see how each student wrote something different.
00:45:36.960 --> 00:45:49.360
And but that one student's chapter was so damn good that Todd said just change the first line and so maybe our little storytelling is inspiring a listener out there to write a whole book about this toilet.
00:45:49.760 --> 00:45:51.360
Lee, what a pleasure to talk to you.
00:45:51.440 --> 00:45:54.559
Thank you for taking the time, and I hope to run into you someday.
00:45:54.800 --> 00:45:55.840
Uh likewise.
00:45:56.159 --> 00:45:58.159
Don't ignore the restraining order.
00:45:58.480 --> 00:45:59.360
Absolutely.
00:45:59.519 --> 00:46:00.320
Thanks, brother.
00:46:00.480 --> 00:46:01.039
Talk to you soon.
00:46:01.199 --> 00:46:01.519
Okay.
00:46:02.000 --> 00:46:02.480
Bye.
00:46:05.280 --> 00:46:06.079
All right, friends.
00:46:06.159 --> 00:46:06.559
That is it.
00:46:06.639 --> 00:46:09.360
That is my conversation with Lee Goldberg.
00:46:09.440 --> 00:46:17.119
Um, just a reminder: his new book in a in a series, Murder by Design, is out June 1st of this year.
00:46:17.360 --> 00:46:23.199
And you can read about that book and everything you want to read about Lee at his website at leegoldberg.com.
00:46:23.280 --> 00:46:25.440
And you can pop on over to CarterWilson.com.
00:46:25.519 --> 00:46:30.400
If you want to especially check out my my upcoming thriller in November, when they find me.
00:46:30.480 --> 00:46:38.960
And if you're looking for any kind of advice or coaching or retreats or seminars on writing, you can head on over to my company at unboundwriter.com.
00:46:39.199 --> 00:46:40.000
All right, that is it.
00:46:40.079 --> 00:46:42.320
That is it for this episode of Making It Up.
00:46:42.400 --> 00:46:44.480
I appreciate you watching andor listening.
00:46:44.559 --> 00:46:47.360
Stay tuned for another episode just next week.
00:46:47.519 --> 00:46:49.920
In the meantime, friends, as always, thank you.
00:46:50.079 --> 00:46:51.039
Take care.