speaker-0: Welcome to Plot Recon, where thrillers get tactical. I'm your host, Evan Graver. Today, I'm joined by MJ Witt, an apocalyptic and survival thriller author. Before turning to writing, he worked a lot of different jobs, including wilderness outfitter, scuba instructor, and he trained dolphins for the US Navy. All real world experience that feeds directly into the survival grit and grounded tension in his stories. Welcome to the show, MJ.
speaker-1: Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to being here.
speaker-0: Yeah, thank you for coming on. ⁓ My first question is always is what made you decide to sit down and write thrillers? You know, what was that catalyst for you?
speaker-1: Yeah, it's kind of a kind of an interesting story. I ⁓ it just developed ⁓ serendipity, I guess is the best thing that you could say. I've always been avid reader, as most authors, think, are from the time I was tall enough to walk pretty much. And ⁓ parents were readers, family was readers. I was ⁓ in 2021, I was home at Christmas in South Dakota. My folks live in South Dakota. I live in the Pacific Northwest right now. And I was visiting them for Christmas. And on the way back, I stopped at the airport and I picked up a book, as I often do. And it was from a post-apocalyptic author, Robin van der Sys. And ⁓ she was writing a post-apocalyptic about a story that was set in the Black Hills of South Dakota. And I thought that would be interesting. I read it on the plane. And I started chatting with her on Facebook when I got back, because I really enjoyed her work and enjoyed her story. And I was reading through that and chatting with her back and forth. And she's like, Well, if you like my story, I'm writing a new book inside of a kind of a unique setting for a novel that's again based in the Black Hills of South Dakota. But the concept is something that, my knowledge, has never been done before. And they took a post-apocalyptic world and had sort of a central author that wrote the first book and set the plot and the world building. And then they invited other authors in. to write about the exact same situation starting the exact same day in different areas of the United States. The first one was set in Florida and then they had one in South Dakota and California and Michigan. ⁓ I was like, that's such a cool concept. I read the book and I read all the other books that they had published at that time. ⁓ I was like, this is just a unique thing. ⁓ I wonder if I live on an island in the Pacific Northwest and it's kind of a unique ⁓ environment for a post-apocalyptic world. I'm like, well, I wonder what would happen if I wrote a book ⁓ based on where I live. And so I wrote the first three chapters and I screwed up my courage and ⁓ I said, know, Robin, would you read this? And it's okay. You can be harsh and tell me if it's garbage or whatever. And she read it and she said, you know, we got to get this in front of my publisher. so ⁓ she sent it to Boyd ⁓ Craven, who's ⁓ Boyd and Lee run Raventhorne books and it's a small indie publisher, sort of a hybrid model. ⁓ And they read it and they said, you know, this is great. We'd love to have you with us and why don't you finish it and we'll get it published. And that kicked things off for me. And my first book came out in August of ⁓ 2022. And I've got eight others published now and I'm on my third series ⁓ now. I did ⁓ six in the Vashon Island Fall World, which is the initial series I did set in that world. And then we're doing a follow-up series that starts two years after that one. So it's sort of a sequel series, if you will. So I had the first book in that series. that's in the editing right now with the publisher and that'll be coming out hopefully in the next couple of months. And then last year I started a brand new series. I wanted to do something a little different than post-apocalyptic, although I've done very well in that genre. All my books were fortunate enough to hit number one on Amazon in the genre that we published them. And so then I was like, I always wanted to do an action thriller. I read a lot of Tom Clancy and Jack Carr and a lot of other, know, Brad Doerr and I'm like, let's try an action thriller. so Lee Child, I love the Reacher model, you know, and so ⁓ I developed a story about a US Marshal, Deputy US Marshal that was born and raised fourth generation ranching family in Montana. ⁓ Growing up in South Dakota, I have a lot of finned sort of the rural lifestyle, cowboy lifestyle. ⁓ And I wrote the first two books in that and they've done real well, not as good as the post-apocalyptic stuff because it's a brand new genre for me and I don't have a name there quite yet. But ⁓ I'm writing the third novel in that series now. So yeah, it sort of fell together about four years ago. Just I stepped in the right direction and got lucky.
speaker-0: That's a amazing story. It's always ⁓ to get lucky like that. The first day out of the gate with just three chapters is.
speaker-1: Yeah, amazingly fortunate and I count my blessings ⁓ every day and it's just I've fallen in love with writing and ⁓ honestly ⁓ I feel like something's going wrong if I don't write a little. ⁓ Every day I carry my computer everywhere I go pretty much and every free 10 minutes I have I'm down, know, putting words down.
speaker-0: Yeah, that's the life of an author. mean, once those ideas seem to start rolling in your head, they just keep coming out. Now, are you a pantser? Are you a plotter?
speaker-1: You know, I am a full on pantser. ⁓ I've always enjoyed storytellers when it comes to authors, know, guys who just tell a good story no matter what the genre is. And I read across many genres and, you know, Robert Heinlein is one of my favorite and Louis Lamour and they just, their characters are, suck you in and the plot stories they tell are interesting. And I just, I just like to tell a story. And so that's the way I approach my writing. You know, I sit down and I just, I have kind of a concept idea where I'm headed, but I sit down and I just start telling that story around what's going on in that situation and it just kind of flows from there. Now, I will say that as I've knocked out book after book, I do more plotting now, particularly with the McKay's Justice series, which is my US Marshal series, ⁓ just because with the action thrillers, there's a little more structure that needs to be involved on. you know, weaving the different plot lines together and that sort of thing. And so I would say I'm probably still 80 % pantser and 20 % plotter. And I don't know that that'll ever change.
speaker-0: Yeah, I think it's tough to get away from pantsing. I'm a pantser full on and and ⁓ When I try to sit down and plot out a book, you know even just You know It's just the three acts trying to figure out all three acts. It just I don't know There's something that you know, like shivers inside of me that says this is not what you're supposed to
speaker-1: Yes, yes, I know it's like, you know, pulling teeth sometimes and I find I have to sit down and write other than just the initial contents. I sit down and read at least five or six chapters before I even go to any sort of outline. And then even then my outline is super loose and ⁓ not until probably the last third of the book. Do I have any concept of how it's going to wrap up? know, so it's something just amazingly organic and unique about that process that it just bubbles up and the story tells itself.
speaker-0: You hit that point, you know, I get I get like 10,000 words in and I'm like, ⁓ crap, where's the story going?
speaker-1: Yeah, well, actually, I've never panicked, but I do hit points where I get a little stuck sometimes. And, know, sometimes I have to take a break for a day or two and just sometimes I'll go bounce to a different chapter where I know that that's going to be needed later. And I'll sort of pre-write that chapter or whatever. But a lot of times I'll just kind of sit and let things mull. I sort of have this process when I'm in a book and I'm in writing and ⁓ all before I go to bed at night. I've always been been a very visualization type of a person. Whether it's if I got something to do at work tomorrow or whether I have something on my mind, I'll lay in bed at night and just spend the first 15, 30 minutes or whatever, just thinking through things. ⁓ I send myself to sleep that direction that way. Then the next day, I get up and sit down and start writing and stuff just yells. Usually when I'm stuck, that's the best way. just spent a couple of days just doing that visualization process. and where would this go and what could happen next and what would be a cool thing. It helps too. I call it sort of my story hook cheat sheet. And any concept I have, whether I'm writing or whether I'm not writing, if I have something cool or I say, I was driving by in Oregon a couple of years ago and I was driving by on the street and there was this African American lady, homeless woman. which you don't see in that part of Oregon very often, but ⁓ in a wheelchair on the side of the road. And she had a pillow in a wheelchair and she had a couple of shopping bags ⁓ and she was just sitting on the sidewalk on the side of the road and she had a pillow and she was just totally sleeping. And I just thought that was such a visceral image of, I won't say city life, but... non-rural life that I'm like, got to at some point write that into a book. And so I jotted that down on the form. And so I have this sort of, you know, list of things. And so every time before I sit down to first start writing a book, I just read through that just to kind of get little sparks in my mind and what I may want to add here or there.
speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, I do the same thing. You see something on the side of the road or you have a conversation with somebody and you think that that's a good spark for a story and you jot it down and come back to it later.
speaker-1: Yeah, and even if it's just a reference, it's unique little flavor pieces like that that help spice up the recipes.
speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely. And then you slip them into the book and I always think that they help improve the book. ⁓
speaker-1: Absolutely. Well, so far, so far folks have liked it.
speaker-0: So how is Raven Thorne treating you are they they know for you?
speaker-1: been fabulous to work with. I think I was the fifth, I might be one off either direction on that. think I was the fifth author that they invited to this ⁓ world. And that was really their first big world series. They had each written some books on their own, and Boyd, Lee Bayliss and Boyd Craven. ⁓ And so they had some experience and they had some experience self-publishing and leads an editor. ⁓ And so I was kind of part of the home team, right? And one of the original five or six. And since then, it's grown ⁓ astronomically. I think in that world now there's, and I probably have the numbers, I'm probably betting low at this point, but 30 authors writing in that world ⁓ from 30 different locations, 30 different. stories of their own, but inside this world. And it's been a great way to sort of generate readers because readers buy into this world and they love the concept and love the world. And then they can go on to the next sort of series within a series ⁓ and ⁓ read the whole event from a different perspective, a different lens. And ⁓ the readers have just snapped it up and ran with it. And it's become a very quick and easy way for certainly as a new author like myself, jump start yourself into getting a readership that follows you. and they've been Raven Thorne has been fantastic. So and they've been very supportive when I wanted to go do something outside of post-apocalyptic.
speaker-0: So are they handling ⁓ all the back end for you, all the advertising, you you're just concentrating on writing?
speaker-1: It's if I had a perfect world, that's exactly what would happen. I every time I have to ⁓ take time away to do something other than writing, I feel like I'm cheating myself, you know, and cheating the readers. But ⁓ the reality of situation is in a, you know, as an Indies hybrid type of an author, ⁓ they do they do. ⁓ I do all the initial editing proofreading, you know. give them a pretty clean end copy. That's my goal anyway. And then they go in with the professional editors and do the final touching and touch-ups and stuff. And then I go back and do a final read through and any final tweaks. then they format. ⁓ And we have a couple of folks that do covers for us. So I work with them to get the covers the way that I'm envisioning. ⁓ And then they'll do the publishing. And then they do... They do a bunch of promotion, certainly within their readership and newsletter lists. And ⁓ they do some ⁓ ads on Facebook and Amazon. But I supplement that with a lot of creative work. do ⁓ a lot of book trailers. I cut my own book trailers, ⁓ some AI, some, you know, just blending of live promotion stuff. And I do a lot of Facebook promotion, both on my ⁓ Facebook author page, as well as ⁓ some advertising as well to sort of supplement some of those things.
speaker-0: Okay. I'm going jump out of the business end and go to a question that I ask a lot of authors because it fascinates me. When I'm looking at your US Marshall series, I see you have the name William McKay. Yep. How did you come up with that name and what does it mean to you?
speaker-1: ⁓ that name I was looking for. I, I'm an, ⁓ to start set the, set the baseline here. I'm, I'm an avid fan of Scotland. ⁓ lived in the UK for a little bit and I have been to Scotland, ⁓ six times now. And, ⁓ my wife and I just were there for two weeks in October. And, I've always loved that, that culture and the history of Scotland. And, ⁓ and I wanted to blend that in as part of. You know, the Scottish and Irish ⁓ immigrants immigrants are such a key part of the American story and culture. You know, the number of Scottish and Irish folks that came over in the 1700s and the 1800s really helped establish ⁓ sort of what America is today. And ⁓ so I wanted to tell a story of this fourth generation ranching family that ⁓ came from Scotland. And so I started looking at, OK, well. I know they wanted to have a Scottish name, right? Scottish last name. And so I started looking at the clans and where they were in the country and where they might have come from, you know, and did a kind of a more the most elaborate backstory that I've had to build in a book at this point before I started writing to kind of get it in my head where the family was and where they came from. and the Macays were ones that ⁓ just fit. ⁓ from a cultural point of view and where they came from and where I planned for their backstory. ⁓ Because I want to do some exploration of that at some point, ⁓ and I build some of that into the story as well. So I'm like, okay, well, if I run with McKay, which I liked for another reason is that it's fairly short, right? Short and easy. I always say short and easy when you're picking character names because you're not going to write them again and again and again and again. If you pick something creative and they're hard to spell and hard to remember how to spell. You're setting yourself up for trouble. And William, ⁓ I just have always ⁓ liked the name William and it's relatively common in Scotland and in America as well. And obviously you get a lot of derivatives of that. You can go whale or bail or ⁓ Mack for McKay professionally. so I kind of started with that premise and built on the name. ⁓ my first book in the series, ⁓ Storm Tide, is actually set in Scotland. ⁓ I wanted just kind of a unique experience where you sort of a fish out of water type of experience, right? Because he's a veteran US, deputy US Marshal. He's had 20 plus years on the job. And he goes to Scotland on vacation for a family commitment that he has with some family that he has back in. ⁓ in Scotland. while there, there's a prisoner transport escape that they're transporting prisoners from the US to Scotland. And he's the only deputy US Marshal in Scotland. And they kind of pull him on into duty from his vacation and say, help find these guys. so that sort of sets the tone. And it was really fun trying to figure out how would a US Marshal operate a guy who's lived for 25 years with a gun on his hip all of his life. basically, but certainly all of his professional life. Now he's having to do his professional job without all the tools and all the systems he uses, without all the firearms and all those things that just really do with his wits and experience.
speaker-0: Yeah, that's a fascinating look at, you know, change of how you look. I ask you this question about the character name because I had a gentleman on named Tom Tate and the name of his character, last name of his character is McKay, also spelled the exact same way.
speaker-1: You know, it's funny, ⁓ Longmire, ⁓ Craig Johnson just came out his new Longmire book ⁓ also has McKay's in it. I actually met him last fall at Bochacon down in Louisiana, New Orleans. And ⁓ I joked that I'm going to have to, you know, make sure I get a special mention in his book or whatever, because he copied my character name.
speaker-0: Yeah, names are tough because there's so many of them out there and then we all want to pick that one. There's so many chases and there's so many names that we envision as thriller author or thriller character names.
speaker-1: Yeah, they have to fit that sort of ⁓ mystique or, you know, personality of the.
speaker-0: Yeah. And the name does, if you're pants are like me and you have a name pop in your head, you can automatically see that character and who they are. And if somewhere down the line, you're forced to change the name, it changes who that character is in your mind.
speaker-1: Absolutely, Yeah, and occasionally I You know, I only got nine books under my belt, but I've had a couple occasions where I'm like hmm I really wish I would have went a little different direction with the name never with the main character but certainly with some secondary characters that is like Mmm, it either didn't the character developed in a way that it didn't necessarily match what what I thought held the name or or just the name was annoying enough that I was like tired of writing it already and then I'm gonna have to write it for a while.
speaker-0: Yeah, I I fell into that trap I thought I'm gonna have a character show up in this and in this book and He's just gonna be a throwaway character for this book and he's not gonna appear in him And you know, my main character's name is Ryan this guy I named him Rick because I could just envision him right and and then he then he is when it was in a whole lot of books and don't want my readers confused and
speaker-1: Yep, no, and that's easy to have happen now.
speaker-0: Yeah, you gotta pick the name that doesn't rhyme with whatever your character is.
speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. And it's, you know, I, I have a harder time with last names. I find that occasionally I'll pick something that I think is unique and distinctive enough. then, you know, after I've wrote it for the 50 or 60th time, it's like, I wish I would pick something a little shorter and easier to spell.
speaker-0: Absolutely. ⁓ So, I want to know about training US dolphins, the ⁓ US Navy dolphins, how did you get into that job?
speaker-1: You know, I went to school and got my degree at University of Colorado. Well, I started at University of Colorado and then I transferred up to Colorado State at Fort Collins and I got my degree in equine science training horses. And I got out of school and I worked for a few years as a wilderness outfitter up in the Rocky Mountains packing and guiding elk hunters and that sort of thing. And then I just fell in love with scuba diving. And so I had moved to the West coast and was living in San Diego on a sailboat and, and, ⁓ working as a dive master on a sail, ⁓ on a dive boat for down there. And, ⁓ the winter was getting a little slower in business and I was looking to pick up some, some other work and, and one of our relief captains on the boat was like, well, you know, it's too bad you don't have any animal training experience because you know, we're looking for divers. He worked for a company called SAIC who has the contract for the US military to train their dolphins and sea lions in San Diego. He's like, well, too bad you don't have an animal training experience because you're a diver and you know what you're doing underwater and we're looking for something with animal handling experience. Those two traits don't always match up very well, large animal handling and training and scuba diving. So I'm like, well, I trained horses for a living. ⁓ I went and put in an application and like I said, the skill and ⁓ experience matched up with what they're looking for. And I did that for about three years. And it was an amazing job to work with them and ⁓ get a chance to handle those animals. And they're just amazing creatures. And then you get the interesting part of working with the Navy and having the Navy guys come. And I worked a lot on the hospital and maternity ⁓ unit. And so we'd work a lot with the veterans. both veteran dolphins ⁓ that had been ⁓ retired ⁓ and then they were used for breeding animals. And then also with ⁓ sometimes they get sick or injured. So we'd have the Navy guys and the handlers ⁓ coming and working right alongside us on the docks, know, and the EOD guys and the guys who handle that dolphin stuff. So you got to see the work that they did day in, day out with dolphins. And I was assigned to dolphin. that actually ⁓ had medals from the Vietnam War. The program has been around that long and so the dolphin had actual medals from the Vietnam War, which is kind
speaker-0: Now these dolphins were, a lot of them are trained to search for underwater mines, is that what you were working
speaker-1: Two primary roles. Underwater mines is one of the biggest and probably the primary role for them. And they're amazing at it. They can sense different kinds of mines and they'll come back and they'll indicate to the handlers, it's this type of mine and then they'll lead the EOD back to where the location is. And so the EOD guys can diffuse the mines or whatever. So ⁓ that's the primary role. And then they also do ⁓ enemy swimmer detection. ⁓ in the water. so they'll patrol harbors, like where we have ships parked or whatever in Kuwait ⁓ or other places around the world. And ⁓ then they'll if they if they detect somebody that's in the water and nobody's supposed to be in the water, they'll come back and indicate to the handler. And what they do is they stick a device on the rostrum that looks like a man catcher. And it's a pair of jaws that are held open by a spring. And then they swim and they smash into the guy underwater and they'll clamp it around their leg or their arm. And it's hooked to a cable back up on the boat. And so the dolphin pops up and they hook, turn on the winch and reel these enemy guys back up out of the water. So it's, you do not want to be in the water around one of our boats, I guarantee, because those things are scary and they hit hard.
speaker-0: That's something I've learned just today. I didn't realize that they use them for that diver interdiction like that. ⁓ Yeah. So yeah, I worked with a lot of EOD guys when I was in the Navy because we did, worked with the squadron that was did mine countermeasures. Yeah. So they're a fun group of guys to be around. And, you know, I made my main character in my books an EOD guy because they don't they're kind of unsung heroes of the Navy force. All the SEALs get the attention and. Yep, you got EOD guys are in the background.
speaker-1: Yeah. I have a little funny story if we have time for that. Dolphin trainer is a unique thing to have on your resume or whatever. ⁓ I had a friend of mine that when he found out that's what I did, he's like, really? No, you didn't. He started laughing. He's like, when I was in California, he went to college in Santa Cruz. He's like, we would always go into the bars and, ⁓ you know, impress the ladies and tell people we were with the seals or whatever, you know, and, and, ⁓ and he said the, the, sometimes we tell them we're dolphin trainers and whatever. said, the only, only guys who ever could ever go into a bar and pull women away from the seals were the dolphin trainers. Cause girls liked that one so much that they would, I know, I never had that experience personally, but, but it is true. You know, you get a lot of ⁓ attention being a dolphin.
speaker-0: Well, that's one way to get a hookup, I guess. So my final question to authors is always, when a reader puts down your book, what do you want them to take away from it?
speaker-1: Ha ha. ⁓ You know, I want them to take away that they felt like they're stepping back out of a world that they were welcome in and that just pulled them in and wrapped them up. And they just can't wait to step back into it. You know, that's always my goal is, know, that it should be immersive enough that they can't want to put the book down. And not just because they want to see what happens next, which is also a key component, right? But also just they love. the world and the richness of it and the characters and the characters become friends to them. And, you know, if something happens to the character, if I can pull a tear out of an eye, I've done my job. Right. And and I think that's that at the end of the day, if they if they set the book down and have felt like it touched them, even from just an enjoyment and telling the story. And that was a world I loved. And I can't wait to get back into it with the next book. That's what I'm looking for.
speaker-0: Yeah, that's it. You always want to be able to pull those emotions out of readers and keep them coming back.
speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, I always love I always love a reader that reaches out to me and say, you know, I am at this point in the book and I had to put the book down because I was crying so hard or whatever the case may be. I have a fan that lives on the island here that was reading one of my books. ⁓ I think it was book number four in the series. And I happened to be in Europe at that time. And I get a text from her. It's like, Dave died. And I'm like, ⁓ my God. because we have a mutual friend, Dave, as well. I'm like, what happened, you know? And then I realized that she was talking about it the book, so gave me a scare. But she was very upset that David died.
speaker-0: ⁓ You want to pull those emotions out of people and make them come back for more. That's a wrap on this episode of Plot Recon, where thrillers get tactical. Thanks to MJ Witt for coming on and breaking down the mechanics of writing survival fiction from his real-world wilderness experience point of view.
speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely.
speaker-0: You can learn more about MJ and his books at MJWitBooks.com. If this episode hit the mark, share it, leave a review, and subscribe wherever you listen. And as always, you can find more episodes and support the show at PlotRecon.com. I am Evan Graver. Thanks for listening. Stay sharp, write hard, and keep your fiction tactical.
speaker-1: Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to being here.
speaker-0: Yeah, thank you for coming on. ⁓ My first question is always is what made you decide to sit down and write thrillers? You know, what was that catalyst for you?
speaker-1: Yeah, it's kind of a kind of an interesting story. I ⁓ it just developed ⁓ serendipity, I guess is the best thing that you could say. I've always been avid reader, as most authors, think, are from the time I was tall enough to walk pretty much. And ⁓ parents were readers, family was readers. I was ⁓ in 2021, I was home at Christmas in South Dakota. My folks live in South Dakota. I live in the Pacific Northwest right now. And I was visiting them for Christmas. And on the way back, I stopped at the airport and I picked up a book, as I often do. And it was from a post-apocalyptic author, Robin van der Sys. And ⁓ she was writing a post-apocalyptic about a story that was set in the Black Hills of South Dakota. And I thought that would be interesting. I read it on the plane. And I started chatting with her on Facebook when I got back, because I really enjoyed her work and enjoyed her story. And I was reading through that and chatting with her back and forth. And she's like, Well, if you like my story, I'm writing a new book inside of a kind of a unique setting for a novel that's again based in the Black Hills of South Dakota. But the concept is something that, my knowledge, has never been done before. And they took a post-apocalyptic world and had sort of a central author that wrote the first book and set the plot and the world building. And then they invited other authors in. to write about the exact same situation starting the exact same day in different areas of the United States. The first one was set in Florida and then they had one in South Dakota and California and Michigan. ⁓ I was like, that's such a cool concept. I read the book and I read all the other books that they had published at that time. ⁓ I was like, this is just a unique thing. ⁓ I wonder if I live on an island in the Pacific Northwest and it's kind of a unique ⁓ environment for a post-apocalyptic world. I'm like, well, I wonder what would happen if I wrote a book ⁓ based on where I live. And so I wrote the first three chapters and I screwed up my courage and ⁓ I said, know, Robin, would you read this? And it's okay. You can be harsh and tell me if it's garbage or whatever. And she read it and she said, you know, we got to get this in front of my publisher. so ⁓ she sent it to Boyd ⁓ Craven, who's ⁓ Boyd and Lee run Raventhorne books and it's a small indie publisher, sort of a hybrid model. ⁓ And they read it and they said, you know, this is great. We'd love to have you with us and why don't you finish it and we'll get it published. And that kicked things off for me. And my first book came out in August of ⁓ 2022. And I've got eight others published now and I'm on my third series ⁓ now. I did ⁓ six in the Vashon Island Fall World, which is the initial series I did set in that world. And then we're doing a follow-up series that starts two years after that one. So it's sort of a sequel series, if you will. So I had the first book in that series. that's in the editing right now with the publisher and that'll be coming out hopefully in the next couple of months. And then last year I started a brand new series. I wanted to do something a little different than post-apocalyptic, although I've done very well in that genre. All my books were fortunate enough to hit number one on Amazon in the genre that we published them. And so then I was like, I always wanted to do an action thriller. I read a lot of Tom Clancy and Jack Carr and a lot of other, know, Brad Doerr and I'm like, let's try an action thriller. so Lee Child, I love the Reacher model, you know, and so ⁓ I developed a story about a US Marshal, Deputy US Marshal that was born and raised fourth generation ranching family in Montana. ⁓ Growing up in South Dakota, I have a lot of finned sort of the rural lifestyle, cowboy lifestyle. ⁓ And I wrote the first two books in that and they've done real well, not as good as the post-apocalyptic stuff because it's a brand new genre for me and I don't have a name there quite yet. But ⁓ I'm writing the third novel in that series now. So yeah, it sort of fell together about four years ago. Just I stepped in the right direction and got lucky.
speaker-0: That's a amazing story. It's always ⁓ to get lucky like that. The first day out of the gate with just three chapters is.
speaker-1: Yeah, amazingly fortunate and I count my blessings ⁓ every day and it's just I've fallen in love with writing and ⁓ honestly ⁓ I feel like something's going wrong if I don't write a little. ⁓ Every day I carry my computer everywhere I go pretty much and every free 10 minutes I have I'm down, know, putting words down.
speaker-0: Yeah, that's the life of an author. mean, once those ideas seem to start rolling in your head, they just keep coming out. Now, are you a pantser? Are you a plotter?
speaker-1: You know, I am a full on pantser. ⁓ I've always enjoyed storytellers when it comes to authors, know, guys who just tell a good story no matter what the genre is. And I read across many genres and, you know, Robert Heinlein is one of my favorite and Louis Lamour and they just, their characters are, suck you in and the plot stories they tell are interesting. And I just, I just like to tell a story. And so that's the way I approach my writing. You know, I sit down and I just, I have kind of a concept idea where I'm headed, but I sit down and I just start telling that story around what's going on in that situation and it just kind of flows from there. Now, I will say that as I've knocked out book after book, I do more plotting now, particularly with the McKay's Justice series, which is my US Marshal series, ⁓ just because with the action thrillers, there's a little more structure that needs to be involved on. you know, weaving the different plot lines together and that sort of thing. And so I would say I'm probably still 80 % pantser and 20 % plotter. And I don't know that that'll ever change.
speaker-0: Yeah, I think it's tough to get away from pantsing. I'm a pantser full on and and ⁓ When I try to sit down and plot out a book, you know even just You know It's just the three acts trying to figure out all three acts. It just I don't know There's something that you know, like shivers inside of me that says this is not what you're supposed to
speaker-1: Yes, yes, I know it's like, you know, pulling teeth sometimes and I find I have to sit down and write other than just the initial contents. I sit down and read at least five or six chapters before I even go to any sort of outline. And then even then my outline is super loose and ⁓ not until probably the last third of the book. Do I have any concept of how it's going to wrap up? know, so it's something just amazingly organic and unique about that process that it just bubbles up and the story tells itself.
speaker-0: You hit that point, you know, I get I get like 10,000 words in and I'm like, ⁓ crap, where's the story going?
speaker-1: Yeah, well, actually, I've never panicked, but I do hit points where I get a little stuck sometimes. And, know, sometimes I have to take a break for a day or two and just sometimes I'll go bounce to a different chapter where I know that that's going to be needed later. And I'll sort of pre-write that chapter or whatever. But a lot of times I'll just kind of sit and let things mull. I sort of have this process when I'm in a book and I'm in writing and ⁓ all before I go to bed at night. I've always been been a very visualization type of a person. Whether it's if I got something to do at work tomorrow or whether I have something on my mind, I'll lay in bed at night and just spend the first 15, 30 minutes or whatever, just thinking through things. ⁓ I send myself to sleep that direction that way. Then the next day, I get up and sit down and start writing and stuff just yells. Usually when I'm stuck, that's the best way. just spent a couple of days just doing that visualization process. and where would this go and what could happen next and what would be a cool thing. It helps too. I call it sort of my story hook cheat sheet. And any concept I have, whether I'm writing or whether I'm not writing, if I have something cool or I say, I was driving by in Oregon a couple of years ago and I was driving by on the street and there was this African American lady, homeless woman. which you don't see in that part of Oregon very often, but ⁓ in a wheelchair on the side of the road. And she had a pillow in a wheelchair and she had a couple of shopping bags ⁓ and she was just sitting on the sidewalk on the side of the road and she had a pillow and she was just totally sleeping. And I just thought that was such a visceral image of, I won't say city life, but... non-rural life that I'm like, got to at some point write that into a book. And so I jotted that down on the form. And so I have this sort of, you know, list of things. And so every time before I sit down to first start writing a book, I just read through that just to kind of get little sparks in my mind and what I may want to add here or there.
speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, I do the same thing. You see something on the side of the road or you have a conversation with somebody and you think that that's a good spark for a story and you jot it down and come back to it later.
speaker-1: Yeah, and even if it's just a reference, it's unique little flavor pieces like that that help spice up the recipes.
speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely. And then you slip them into the book and I always think that they help improve the book. ⁓
speaker-1: Absolutely. Well, so far, so far folks have liked it.
speaker-0: So how is Raven Thorne treating you are they they know for you?
speaker-1: been fabulous to work with. I think I was the fifth, I might be one off either direction on that. think I was the fifth author that they invited to this ⁓ world. And that was really their first big world series. They had each written some books on their own, and Boyd, Lee Bayliss and Boyd Craven. ⁓ And so they had some experience and they had some experience self-publishing and leads an editor. ⁓ And so I was kind of part of the home team, right? And one of the original five or six. And since then, it's grown ⁓ astronomically. I think in that world now there's, and I probably have the numbers, I'm probably betting low at this point, but 30 authors writing in that world ⁓ from 30 different locations, 30 different. stories of their own, but inside this world. And it's been a great way to sort of generate readers because readers buy into this world and they love the concept and love the world. And then they can go on to the next sort of series within a series ⁓ and ⁓ read the whole event from a different perspective, a different lens. And ⁓ the readers have just snapped it up and ran with it. And it's become a very quick and easy way for certainly as a new author like myself, jump start yourself into getting a readership that follows you. and they've been Raven Thorne has been fantastic. So and they've been very supportive when I wanted to go do something outside of post-apocalyptic.
speaker-0: So are they handling ⁓ all the back end for you, all the advertising, you you're just concentrating on writing?
speaker-1: It's if I had a perfect world, that's exactly what would happen. I every time I have to ⁓ take time away to do something other than writing, I feel like I'm cheating myself, you know, and cheating the readers. But ⁓ the reality of situation is in a, you know, as an Indies hybrid type of an author, ⁓ they do they do. ⁓ I do all the initial editing proofreading, you know. give them a pretty clean end copy. That's my goal anyway. And then they go in with the professional editors and do the final touching and touch-ups and stuff. And then I go back and do a final read through and any final tweaks. then they format. ⁓ And we have a couple of folks that do covers for us. So I work with them to get the covers the way that I'm envisioning. ⁓ And then they'll do the publishing. And then they do... They do a bunch of promotion, certainly within their readership and newsletter lists. And ⁓ they do some ⁓ ads on Facebook and Amazon. But I supplement that with a lot of creative work. do ⁓ a lot of book trailers. I cut my own book trailers, ⁓ some AI, some, you know, just blending of live promotion stuff. And I do a lot of Facebook promotion, both on my ⁓ Facebook author page, as well as ⁓ some advertising as well to sort of supplement some of those things.
speaker-0: Okay. I'm going jump out of the business end and go to a question that I ask a lot of authors because it fascinates me. When I'm looking at your US Marshall series, I see you have the name William McKay. Yep. How did you come up with that name and what does it mean to you?
speaker-1: ⁓ that name I was looking for. I, I'm an, ⁓ to start set the, set the baseline here. I'm, I'm an avid fan of Scotland. ⁓ lived in the UK for a little bit and I have been to Scotland, ⁓ six times now. And, ⁓ my wife and I just were there for two weeks in October. And, I've always loved that, that culture and the history of Scotland. And, ⁓ and I wanted to blend that in as part of. You know, the Scottish and Irish ⁓ immigrants immigrants are such a key part of the American story and culture. You know, the number of Scottish and Irish folks that came over in the 1700s and the 1800s really helped establish ⁓ sort of what America is today. And ⁓ so I wanted to tell a story of this fourth generation ranching family that ⁓ came from Scotland. And so I started looking at, OK, well. I know they wanted to have a Scottish name, right? Scottish last name. And so I started looking at the clans and where they were in the country and where they might have come from, you know, and did a kind of a more the most elaborate backstory that I've had to build in a book at this point before I started writing to kind of get it in my head where the family was and where they came from. and the Macays were ones that ⁓ just fit. ⁓ from a cultural point of view and where they came from and where I planned for their backstory. ⁓ Because I want to do some exploration of that at some point, ⁓ and I build some of that into the story as well. So I'm like, okay, well, if I run with McKay, which I liked for another reason is that it's fairly short, right? Short and easy. I always say short and easy when you're picking character names because you're not going to write them again and again and again and again. If you pick something creative and they're hard to spell and hard to remember how to spell. You're setting yourself up for trouble. And William, ⁓ I just have always ⁓ liked the name William and it's relatively common in Scotland and in America as well. And obviously you get a lot of derivatives of that. You can go whale or bail or ⁓ Mack for McKay professionally. so I kind of started with that premise and built on the name. ⁓ my first book in the series, ⁓ Storm Tide, is actually set in Scotland. ⁓ I wanted just kind of a unique experience where you sort of a fish out of water type of experience, right? Because he's a veteran US, deputy US Marshal. He's had 20 plus years on the job. And he goes to Scotland on vacation for a family commitment that he has with some family that he has back in. ⁓ in Scotland. while there, there's a prisoner transport escape that they're transporting prisoners from the US to Scotland. And he's the only deputy US Marshal in Scotland. And they kind of pull him on into duty from his vacation and say, help find these guys. so that sort of sets the tone. And it was really fun trying to figure out how would a US Marshal operate a guy who's lived for 25 years with a gun on his hip all of his life. basically, but certainly all of his professional life. Now he's having to do his professional job without all the tools and all the systems he uses, without all the firearms and all those things that just really do with his wits and experience.
speaker-0: Yeah, that's a fascinating look at, you know, change of how you look. I ask you this question about the character name because I had a gentleman on named Tom Tate and the name of his character, last name of his character is McKay, also spelled the exact same way.
speaker-1: You know, it's funny, ⁓ Longmire, ⁓ Craig Johnson just came out his new Longmire book ⁓ also has McKay's in it. I actually met him last fall at Bochacon down in Louisiana, New Orleans. And ⁓ I joked that I'm going to have to, you know, make sure I get a special mention in his book or whatever, because he copied my character name.
speaker-0: Yeah, names are tough because there's so many of them out there and then we all want to pick that one. There's so many chases and there's so many names that we envision as thriller author or thriller character names.
speaker-1: Yeah, they have to fit that sort of ⁓ mystique or, you know, personality of the.
speaker-0: Yeah. And the name does, if you're pants are like me and you have a name pop in your head, you can automatically see that character and who they are. And if somewhere down the line, you're forced to change the name, it changes who that character is in your mind.
speaker-1: Absolutely, Yeah, and occasionally I You know, I only got nine books under my belt, but I've had a couple occasions where I'm like hmm I really wish I would have went a little different direction with the name never with the main character but certainly with some secondary characters that is like Mmm, it either didn't the character developed in a way that it didn't necessarily match what what I thought held the name or or just the name was annoying enough that I was like tired of writing it already and then I'm gonna have to write it for a while.
speaker-0: Yeah, I I fell into that trap I thought I'm gonna have a character show up in this and in this book and He's just gonna be a throwaway character for this book and he's not gonna appear in him And you know, my main character's name is Ryan this guy I named him Rick because I could just envision him right and and then he then he is when it was in a whole lot of books and don't want my readers confused and
speaker-1: Yep, no, and that's easy to have happen now.
speaker-0: Yeah, you gotta pick the name that doesn't rhyme with whatever your character is.
speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. And it's, you know, I, I have a harder time with last names. I find that occasionally I'll pick something that I think is unique and distinctive enough. then, you know, after I've wrote it for the 50 or 60th time, it's like, I wish I would pick something a little shorter and easier to spell.
speaker-0: Absolutely. ⁓ So, I want to know about training US dolphins, the ⁓ US Navy dolphins, how did you get into that job?
speaker-1: You know, I went to school and got my degree at University of Colorado. Well, I started at University of Colorado and then I transferred up to Colorado State at Fort Collins and I got my degree in equine science training horses. And I got out of school and I worked for a few years as a wilderness outfitter up in the Rocky Mountains packing and guiding elk hunters and that sort of thing. And then I just fell in love with scuba diving. And so I had moved to the West coast and was living in San Diego on a sailboat and, and, ⁓ working as a dive master on a sail, ⁓ on a dive boat for down there. And, ⁓ the winter was getting a little slower in business and I was looking to pick up some, some other work and, and one of our relief captains on the boat was like, well, you know, it's too bad you don't have any animal training experience because you know, we're looking for divers. He worked for a company called SAIC who has the contract for the US military to train their dolphins and sea lions in San Diego. He's like, well, too bad you don't have an animal training experience because you're a diver and you know what you're doing underwater and we're looking for something with animal handling experience. Those two traits don't always match up very well, large animal handling and training and scuba diving. So I'm like, well, I trained horses for a living. ⁓ I went and put in an application and like I said, the skill and ⁓ experience matched up with what they're looking for. And I did that for about three years. And it was an amazing job to work with them and ⁓ get a chance to handle those animals. And they're just amazing creatures. And then you get the interesting part of working with the Navy and having the Navy guys come. And I worked a lot on the hospital and maternity ⁓ unit. And so we'd work a lot with the veterans. both veteran dolphins ⁓ that had been ⁓ retired ⁓ and then they were used for breeding animals. And then also with ⁓ sometimes they get sick or injured. So we'd have the Navy guys and the handlers ⁓ coming and working right alongside us on the docks, know, and the EOD guys and the guys who handle that dolphin stuff. So you got to see the work that they did day in, day out with dolphins. And I was assigned to dolphin. that actually ⁓ had medals from the Vietnam War. The program has been around that long and so the dolphin had actual medals from the Vietnam War, which is kind
speaker-0: Now these dolphins were, a lot of them are trained to search for underwater mines, is that what you were working
speaker-1: Two primary roles. Underwater mines is one of the biggest and probably the primary role for them. And they're amazing at it. They can sense different kinds of mines and they'll come back and they'll indicate to the handlers, it's this type of mine and then they'll lead the EOD back to where the location is. And so the EOD guys can diffuse the mines or whatever. So ⁓ that's the primary role. And then they also do ⁓ enemy swimmer detection. ⁓ in the water. so they'll patrol harbors, like where we have ships parked or whatever in Kuwait ⁓ or other places around the world. And ⁓ then they'll if they if they detect somebody that's in the water and nobody's supposed to be in the water, they'll come back and indicate to the handler. And what they do is they stick a device on the rostrum that looks like a man catcher. And it's a pair of jaws that are held open by a spring. And then they swim and they smash into the guy underwater and they'll clamp it around their leg or their arm. And it's hooked to a cable back up on the boat. And so the dolphin pops up and they hook, turn on the winch and reel these enemy guys back up out of the water. So it's, you do not want to be in the water around one of our boats, I guarantee, because those things are scary and they hit hard.
speaker-0: That's something I've learned just today. I didn't realize that they use them for that diver interdiction like that. ⁓ Yeah. So yeah, I worked with a lot of EOD guys when I was in the Navy because we did, worked with the squadron that was did mine countermeasures. Yeah. So they're a fun group of guys to be around. And, you know, I made my main character in my books an EOD guy because they don't they're kind of unsung heroes of the Navy force. All the SEALs get the attention and. Yep, you got EOD guys are in the background.
speaker-1: Yeah. I have a little funny story if we have time for that. Dolphin trainer is a unique thing to have on your resume or whatever. ⁓ I had a friend of mine that when he found out that's what I did, he's like, really? No, you didn't. He started laughing. He's like, when I was in California, he went to college in Santa Cruz. He's like, we would always go into the bars and, ⁓ you know, impress the ladies and tell people we were with the seals or whatever, you know, and, and, ⁓ and he said the, the, sometimes we tell them we're dolphin trainers and whatever. said, the only, only guys who ever could ever go into a bar and pull women away from the seals were the dolphin trainers. Cause girls liked that one so much that they would, I know, I never had that experience personally, but, but it is true. You know, you get a lot of ⁓ attention being a dolphin.
speaker-0: Well, that's one way to get a hookup, I guess. So my final question to authors is always, when a reader puts down your book, what do you want them to take away from it?
speaker-1: Ha ha. ⁓ You know, I want them to take away that they felt like they're stepping back out of a world that they were welcome in and that just pulled them in and wrapped them up. And they just can't wait to step back into it. You know, that's always my goal is, know, that it should be immersive enough that they can't want to put the book down. And not just because they want to see what happens next, which is also a key component, right? But also just they love. the world and the richness of it and the characters and the characters become friends to them. And, you know, if something happens to the character, if I can pull a tear out of an eye, I've done my job. Right. And and I think that's that at the end of the day, if they if they set the book down and have felt like it touched them, even from just an enjoyment and telling the story. And that was a world I loved. And I can't wait to get back into it with the next book. That's what I'm looking for.
speaker-0: Yeah, that's it. You always want to be able to pull those emotions out of readers and keep them coming back.
speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, I always love I always love a reader that reaches out to me and say, you know, I am at this point in the book and I had to put the book down because I was crying so hard or whatever the case may be. I have a fan that lives on the island here that was reading one of my books. ⁓ I think it was book number four in the series. And I happened to be in Europe at that time. And I get a text from her. It's like, Dave died. And I'm like, ⁓ my God. because we have a mutual friend, Dave, as well. I'm like, what happened, you know? And then I realized that she was talking about it the book, so gave me a scare. But she was very upset that David died.
speaker-0: ⁓ You want to pull those emotions out of people and make them come back for more. That's a wrap on this episode of Plot Recon, where thrillers get tactical. Thanks to MJ Witt for coming on and breaking down the mechanics of writing survival fiction from his real-world wilderness experience point of view.
speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely.
speaker-0: You can learn more about MJ and his books at MJWitBooks.com. If this episode hit the mark, share it, leave a review, and subscribe wherever you listen. And as always, you can find more episodes and support the show at PlotRecon.com. I am Evan Graver. Thanks for listening. Stay sharp, write hard, and keep your fiction tactical.
