Joseph Finder's Blog, page 4

We are recruiting an elite group of Joseph Finder "superfans" to help spread the word about my books and Nick Heller. Because nothing in the book business is more important than word of mouth.

And to express my appreciation, the Heller's Angels will get all sorts of advance access and cool swag, including:

- exclusive access to sneak preview material from the new book

- a Heller's Angels t-shirt (Show your Heller's Angels cred with these 100% cotton t-shirts available in multiple sizes and two styles: American Apparel slim fit and classic Hanes Beefy Tees.)

- some Heller Associates Field Notes journals (Never miss a trick with these 3.5"x5" "Scout Books"-style notebooks featuring chipboard cover, blank lined pages, and just a bit of inside information on Heller Associates. Always handy for shopping lists, notes on movies to rent or books to read, and field surveillance reports.)

- 5 copies of VANISHED to give to your friends & family

- early access to special content like videos and author interviews

- inside information and updates from me

- a video conference in June with me and fellow Angels

As Heller's Angels, you’ll be offered missions to complete between now and the June 21 publication of BURIED SECRETS, so that you can be an essential part of the advance buzz for the new book.

Interested? E-mail [email protected] with the subject "Heller's Angel."

This offer is currently limited to U.S. residents only.

 

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Browsing through photos of other writers’ desks made me take a closer look at my own, in all its clutter. My desk, which takes up almost an entire wall of my office, is a 19th century library table made of quarter-sawn oak. It’s eight feet long. Even so, it’s hard to see the wood for all the things it’s accumulated: office supplies, toys, gadgets, and the paper that goes with being a writer even in this electronic age. 

“Clutter” is the wrong word, I’ve decided. It only looks like clutter to the uninitiated. Every tchotchke on my desk comes with a story of its own. Many were gifts, a few were prizes, all have sentimental value as reminders of the people and places that support my writing every day.

Rather than clean it all up, I mapped it out — for my own benefit, as much as anything. My website now includes an interactive guide to my writing desk, which you can tour here. Mouse over the various items on the desk for the stories behind them. 

I’m not saying every writer needs all of these things. I’m just explaining why I do. And now I look at the photo, I see a few clear spots of wood — which means there’s still room for anything else I really need . . .

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This review appears on the Amazon web page for LOVE YOU MORE, but it's a book that deserves attention from all readers, not just those who shop online. Visit Lisa's own website for more information, including a list of bookstores where she signed books last month.

I just took a break from writing my new book to read the latest by Lisa Gardner, who's one of the very few writers on my must-read list. Usually when I'm deep into a novel, I read very little in the genre. But Lisa Gardner sent me an advance copy of LOVE YOU MORE, and I pretty much dropped everything and read it through the weekend.

I've been a fan of Lisa's D.D. Warren series for some time, but she's truly outdone herself with this one. It grabs you on the first page and keeps you guessing until the final chapter, moving effortlessly between first person and third person narration, weaving an extraordinary amount of research into nonstop action.

LOVE YOU MORE starts with a crime we think we understand. Massachusetts State Trooper Tessa Leoni's husband Brian is dead in their kitchen, and Trooper Leoni has been beaten almost to death. It looks to everyone like a case of a battered wife defending herself at last. But Leoni's six-year-old daughter, Sophie, is missing, and the trooper's story is full of holes — holes that become even wider and more curious as Boston Police Detective Sergeant D.D. Warren and her old lover, friend and former partner Bobby Dodge investigate.

Warren is dealing with issues of her own, as her relationship with Alex (who never appears in person in this installment) reaches a major turning point, one with implications for Warren's investigation and beyond. (I'm not going to give away what that is. You'll have to read it to find out for yourself.) The nature and power of Trooper Leoni's attachment to her daughter are central to this story: just how much does Leoni love her daughter, and to what lengths will she go to protect her? Is it possible that a mother so devoted could kill her own child?

As Warren and Dodge follow the trail of clues, they uncover secrets at every turn: a terrible crime in Leoni's adolescence, a shameful secret of her husband's, and unimaginable betrayal among comrades and friends. Stakes escalate to a climax that is shocking, sad and deeply satisfying.

LOVE YOU MORE stands out in the crowded field of thrillers not only because it's a terrific book, but because it features two compelling and believable female protagonists. Trooper Leoni tells us her own story in the first person, alternating with the third-person narrative of Warren's investigation. Leoni's motives emerge over the course of the book, but her passion and conviction draw us in even before we know whether she's guilty or innocent. We cannot argue with her absolute drive, even as we root for Warren and Dodge to make sure justice is done. It's a remarkable juggling act that requires rare talent, and readers will be anxious for the next installment in D.D. Warren's adventures.

I've noticed that a lot of guys have some kind of prejudice against thrillers written by women. Take my word for it: Lisa Gardner has the suspense chops to compete with Harlan Coben, Lee Child, and Michael Connelly. Anyone who's already read Tess Gerritsen, Karin Slaughter, Sandra Brown, or Mary Higgins Clark knows that some of the most gripping thrillers around are written by women.

If you haven't yet discovered Lisa Gardner, now's the perfect time to start. LOVE YOU MORE is going to win her a legion of new fans and launch her right to the top of the lists along with Nora Roberts and Tami Hoag -- and Stieg Larsson.

 

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Among the highlights of my year is Bouchercon , the World Mystery Convention, held every fall at locations that rotate around the country. Jon Jordan, chair of this year's Bouchercon, asked participants for their most treasured Bouchercon memories. Here's one of mine.

What I really wanted to be when I grew up was a cartoonist. When I visited my older sister in college she introduced me to one of the freshman counselors, Garry Trudeau, who was already famous for writing and drawing “Doonesbury.” It didn’t help when I took basic drawing my freshman year and flunked out — literally got an F. (How bad do you have to be to get an F in basic drawing, right?)

But a man can still dream . . .

At Bouchercon in Baltimore, I accosted a DC Comics editor named Will Dennis at one of the parties. I told him I had a subplot in a novel I was writing at the time, VANISHED, involving a kid who was doing a graphic novel that would contain an important clue, and I asked him if he could give me a quick “Comics For Dummies” lesson so I could pretend to know what I was talking about. Will said sure and introduced me to the guy he was sitting with — a comic book writer named Brian Azzarello. The name was vaguely familiar — was it possible this was the genius behind “Joker,” which became the movie Dark Knight? And the hardboiled crime classic 100 Bullets?

Yep. That was the guy.

Then I came up with the idea to actually do a comic book based on the fictional one in Vanished. And Brian Azzarello volunteered to write it.

Very cool.

Will Dennis helped me find an artist, Benito Gallego, who drew in a sort of retro Silver Age comic-book style, which I wanted. The result was The Cowl. Which — I can say it, since I didn’t write it or illustrate it — turned out to be pretty awesome.

All because I was boorish one day at Bouchercon.

 

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Ask any novelist: it happens every day. We meet someone new who asks, “What do you do?” We tell them, and that person – in line at the post office, at a PTA meeting, online, wherever – will say, “I have a great idea for a book. Want to write it with me?”

It’s a generous offer, meant with nothing but goodwill, but my answer is always some variation of “No, thank you.” I try to be polite. Some authors I know aren’t.

Coming up with ideas is never the problem. The ideas are out there, everywhere, too many of them. Everything starts with “what if?” What if the barista at the Starbucks near MIT is a spy sent to pick up scientific secrets? What if those parents at the dance recital adopted their child illegally? What if that old man walking his dog is a Balkan war criminal in hiding? It’s a strange, complicated world, and real life is just as dramatic and surprising as fiction. The Boston Globe alone could give me enough material for a lifetime of thrillers.

No, the challenge writers face isn’t ideas, it’s time — and focus.

I read somewhere that the average first novel should be about 80,000 words. My books run slightly longer than that (BURIED SECRETS is roughly 95,000), and it takes time to put those words on paper. A good idea, that initial burst of inspiration, might be good for 30,000 words or so. I also write very fast as I’m finishing a book; in the last week or two of writing, I’m up before dawn and writing well into the night, as the story takes on a momentum of its own.

Between that, I get distracted. And distractions kill more novels than anything else.

Over the years I have tried to train myself to avoid distractions, but new ones just keep coming. As big a boon as the Internet is to a writer, it’s also a curse. Googling anything is dangerous: one link leads to another, and the next thing I know, two hours have passed. I can spend all morning on email. Twitter is addictive. Facebook is the break room my office doesn’t have. And don’t get me started on YouTube...

I’ve set rules for myself. I’ve made it a game; an hourglass sits on my desk, and while the sands run, I can’t go online. It’s not always enough. A recent Wall Street Journal blog post reported on writers who deliberately seek out Internet-free zones so they can write without distraction. I’d do the same, if not for Mac Freedom, a program that literally locks me out of the Internet for some period I choose. Yes, I paid (a very reasonable sum) for a program to keep me offline. That’s how important it is.

So now I’m online in the morning, before I start writing, and I’m online in the late afternoon and evening, after the writing is done. Some days, if the writing’s going well, you’ll catch me online in the middle of the day. But the battle against distraction is constant, and I’m always looking for new weapons against it.

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It gives me great pleasure to see the paperback edition of HIGH CRIMES back on shelves today, 13 years after its original publication. Like most paperback versions of books originally published in hardcover, it carries a few excerpts from good reviews — “Fast and furious,” according to The New York Times, right there on the front cover.

Pick up the hardcover of VANISHED, though, and you’ll see not a review, but a very nice quotation from Lee Child. I won’t reproduce it all here, but he says, among other things, that he thinks Nick Heller and Jack Reacher would “go for a beer together and set the world to rights.” This is what we in the business call a “blurb.” The word was originally coined to mock excessive praise on book jackets, but I don’t think of it as a derogatory term; it just means “A short description of a book, film, musical work, or other product written and used for promotional purposes.” Publishers like to use blurbs to promote hardcovers, particularly for new authors, as they give readers some advance confidence about the quality of a book before the reviews come in.

Lee’s blurb for VANISHED was unusual in the business (though not unusual for Lee), because gave potential readers specific information about the book and its main character, Nick Heller. It’s clear from the quotation that Lee actually read VANISHED, as I know he reads all the books he recommends.

I too read every book I blurb, which is why I don’t give many recommendations. Some authors I know (naming no names) don’t feel the need, as long as the book comes to them from a trusted source. The columnist Calvin Trillin once wrote that anyone giving a blurb should have to disclose his or her relationship to the author under the quotation —“Brother-in-law,” “Share the same agent,” “Met him in a bar.” Several years ago, I ran into an author who told me he’d just read THE DA VINCI CODE, and it was great. It would have been rude to point out that this author had blurbed the book when it had come out the year before.

Do I blame the authors who blurb without reading? No. On a book-a-year schedule, it’s hard enough to reread your own drafts, much less the books people send you for endorsements. It gets to be a vicious circle, too: the more successful the author, the more requests for blurbs, the less time to read the books. It’s hard to say no, especially if it’s a friend asking. It’s tempting to say yes, because really, what harm does it do?

I learned this lesson the hard way. Once upon a time – I won’t say when – I gave a book a quotation without having read it. As it turned out, the book wasn’t very good, and what surprised me was how many people let me know. They felt betrayed. They had trusted my recommendation, and I let them down. I was embarrassed and sorry. If I’d read the book first, I’d have saved everyone some time.

As it happens, this week also marks the publication of a book I did blurb: BRINGING ADAM HOME, by the crime writer Les Standiford with Detective Sergeant Joe Matthews. It’s the harrowing true story of the hunt for Adam Walsh’s murderer, and my recommendation is right on the back cover. Like Lee’s quotation for VANISHED, it’s a little too long to reprint in full here, but among other things, I called the book “heartbreaking and hypnotically suspenseful.”

And now you know I really meant it.

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Criticism can never be a science: it is, in the first place, much too personal, and in the second, it is concerned with values that science ignores. The touchstone is emotion, not reason. We judge a work of art by its effect on our sincere and vital emotion, and nothing else.

—    D.H. Lawrence

A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down.

—    Edna St. Vincent Millay

I concluded last week’s blog by saying I trusted that readers new to HIGH CRIMES (being rereleased in paperback on March 1) would let me know whether the story still holds up, 13 years after its original publication. Until I wrote that sentence, it hadn’t really occurred to me: people will write. While I hope most of that feedback will be positive, some readers will need to let me know about parts of the book that didn’t work for them.

I read these emails, just as I read my reviews. Even if a reader is writing to criticize, the criticism means that the book made an impact, that the reader cared enough to want the story or the characters to go a certain way, and be disappointed if they didn’t. In this day and age, when readers are busy and distracted and have so many demands on their time, I’m honored when readers take the time to write to me — even if they’re writing with bad news.

I used to assume that any writer who claimed not to read reviews was lying. Over the years I’ve met a handful of authors whose claims I believe, but I would never be able to follow their example. I’m not that strong; I want to know what people think. I pay attention to feedback. While all feedback isn’t equally valuable, I’ve learned to recognize the criticisms that ring true, and appreciate feedback that shows me ways to improve my writing.

Getting feedback from HIGH CRIMES is going to be a challenge, because I believe — I hope — I’ve learned a lot since I wrote that book, in the late 1990s. While I’m proud of HIGH CRIMES, and I’m grateful for its positive reviews, I believe I’m a better writer now than I was 13 years ago. Some part of that is due to the feedback HIGH CRIMES received when it was first published.

I discuss the art of processing feedback at greater length here, but today I’ll highlight one piece of advice I’ve found especially useful: pay attention to comments you get from more than one reader. The rule of three applies: if three readers ask me something about a character or a plot point, I need to fix something.

What’s frustrating, of course, is that once the book is on the shelf, my ability to fix anything is limited. But I’ll note the feedback and remember it for next time. No work ever reaches a state of perfection, but at least I can try for new flaws with every book.

Giveaways of paperbacks and DVDs of HIGH CRIMES will continue between now and March 1. Subscribe to the newsletter, “like” the Facebook fan page, and follow me on Twitter for chances to win!

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Counting down to the paperback reissue of HIGH CRIMES, I’ve been looking at the book again, for the first time in a while. HIGH CRIMES first appeared in 1998, after all, and I’ve written six novels since then (with a seventh now in progress). I’ve seen the movie more recently than I’ve reread my own book; the movie shows up on cable pretty regularly, while the book just sits on my shelf and waits to be taken down again.

You can’t ask an author “Which book is your favorite?” because it’s like asking a parent to name his or her favorite child. Easy enough when you have only one, but I’ve got 10, soon to be 11 (books, not children). I have to do what parents of large families do, and identify specific things about each book that I’m particularly fond of, or proud of.

It takes time to write a book. Revisiting my books feels a bit like time travel, especially as I look over the pages of acknowledgments. HIGH CRIMES, set in the world of national security and military courtrooms, required a lot of research. It would not have been possible without the help of dozens of experts who shared their knowledge about everything from surveillance technologies to courts-martial. Reading my acknowledgments feels like paging through a yearbook, as I remember all of these people, several of whom became lasting friends.

HIGH CRIMES, for those of you unfamiliar with the book or the movie, is the story of Claire Heller Chapman (in the film, Claire Kubik), a Harvard law professor and criminal defense attorney with a beautiful six-year-old daughter and a husband, Tom, who’s almost too good to be true. As Claire, Tom and Annie finish a celebratory dinner in a downtown Boston shopping mall, federal agents show up to arrest Tom for murder, saying he’s been a fugitive from justice and the U.S. military for 13 years. Nothing Claire believes about her life may be true — but she believes in her husband, and will marshal all the resources at her disposal to defend him. That ultimately includes taking on his defense herself.

So which piece of HIGH CRIMES am I most fond and proud of? It has to be the characters of Claire and Annie. Claire’s one of only two female protagonists I’ve created — the other is FBI agent Sarah Cahill, heroine of THE ZERO HOUR — and I still love her, 13 years later. She’s smart, strong, loving and brave, but she’s also a flawed human being. She does things she knows she shouldn’t (including smoking after she’s quit, a habit that seems downright shocking in this decade). She’s obstinate, even when it doesn’t serve her, and at times she’s downright reckless. In the end, though, she draws on her extraordinary resources to do whatever it takes to protect what she loves most. HIGH CRIMES is dedicated to my own wife and daughter, and while Claire and Annie are fictional characters, the women in my life played major roles in creating them.

I’ll be interested to hear from new readers about how the story elements of HIGH CRIMES hold up, 13 years after its original publication. HIGH CRIMES was written seven years after the first Gulf War, three years before the September 11 attacks, and six years before the disclosures of abuses at Abu Ghraib. Are the crimes Tom stands accused of less shocking now than they were 13 years ago? I don’t think so. In fact, I hope not. I hope the characters and story feel as strong to new readers today as they did to me 13 years ago. But I trust readers will let me know.

Giveaways of paperbacks and DVDs of HIGH CRIMES will continue between now and March 1. Subscribe to the newsletter, “like” the Facebook fan page, and follow me on Twitter for chances to win!

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Why is a raven like a writing desk?

— The Mad Hatter, Alice in Wonderland

Lewis Carroll doesn’t give us an answer to this question, but one look at my own desk supplies an answer: both ravens and writing desks (mine, at least) collect shiny things.

Ravens’ tendency to snatch up things that catch their eye and hide them for later makes them natural role models for writers. My desk is full of treasures and distractions, although everything on it is something I really need: my computer, of course; two monitors, so I can look at more than one thing at once; my favorite pens; my hourglass, to measure out uninterrupted writing time; my beloved Blackwing pencils, for marking up manuscripts; and the latest addition, my Batphone, because you never know when Gotham might need saving.

But I’m in good company. View this slideshow of famous writers' desks.

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On March 1, just over a month from now, HIGH CRIMES will once again be available in paperback, after a few years out of print.

I’m looking forward to that the way I’d look forward to a reunion with an old friend. Like most authors, I don’t spend much time rereading my own work, but it’s reassuring to be able to go into a bookstore and see the old books on the shelves.

The book’s reissue has sent me back to my DVD shelf to look at the movie version again. HIGH CRIMES the movie differs from HIGH CRIMES the novel in some significant ways — and I’m totally okay with that, because they’re both strong entertainments in their own right. If you watch the movie of HIGH CRIMES, you’ll see me onscreen, briefly, and that experience taught me a lot about why I’m glad I’m writing books instead of making movies.

Although I’ve written six books since HIGH CRIMES, my fourth novel is still the only one to make it from page to screen. (Sorry, I have no new information about the film versions of PARANOIA or KILLER INSTINCT; they’re still “in development,” as they say.) Some huge percentage of books optioned or sold to the movies — maybe as many as 90% — never get made. I had sold ZERO HOUR to the movies, and that film never got made. While I was delighted to sell HIGH CRIMES, I had no real confidence that I’d ever see it in a theater.

So imagine my excitement when my agent called to say that not only was HIGH CRIMES going to be a movie, it was going to star Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd. Ashley Judd! Morgan Freeman! I hadn’t admitted it to anyone, but it had been Morgan Freeman I’d imagined when writing the character of Charlie Grimes.

I hadn’t been involved in the writing of the screenplay, but very much wanted to be part of the movie, and said so. Put me in, I said: I’ll be an extra, a walk-on, anything. Soon after production started, I got a call. They could use me as background in the courtroom scenes, but I’d need to shave my head.

I didn’t hesitate. I offered to get my head shaved that very afternoon. Not necessary, they told me; they’d do it on set, to make sure it looked right.

The first thing you notice on a movie set is the sheer number of people around. It takes about 500 people to make a major motion picture, the size of an army unit. Everyone has a job to do, from the director to the people working craft services (the food table; very important, when you’re feeding 500).

I was originally meant to be a member of the jury at Tom Kubik’s trial, but the director, Carl Franklin, liked my look (see, that’s a Hollywood term, my “look”). I got a battlefield promotion to assistant prosecutor. Watch the film and you can see me at the desk, sitting right next to the prosecutor.

Morgan Freeman has a well-deserved reputation as one of the nicest and most professional guys in the business, but he has a wicked sense of humor, as well. Ashley Judd is even more beautiful in person than on the screen, and brilliant to boot. It was heady to feel that they were colleagues. I’m in five scenes, shot over five long days, and was tired by the end of it.

People often ask whether I objected to the changes the film makes from the book. No, I didn’t object then, and I don’t now. I had no input into the screenplay, and am just as glad I didn’t — but seeing HIGH CRIMES turned into a film gave me a new understanding and appreciation for the difference between movie storytelling and novel storytelling.

I had 400 pages to tell Claire and Tom’s story. Carl Franklin and his team of filmmakers and actors had 115 minutes. What HIGH CRIMES showed me was that movies need to be faithful to themselves, not to the books they’re based on. Turning a 400-page novel into a 115-minute film required not only abridgment but structural changes, and I understood why those were necessary. In the novel, for example, Claire and Tom have a little girl, Annie, based on my own daughter at the time. Annie is missing from the film, and Claire and Tom are trying to start a family. I was sorry to lose her, but I saw the difference it made to Claire and Tom’s relationship in the film.

That said, some pieces of my book made it to the screen with no changes at all. The courtroom, for example, looks exactly as I’d described it, down to the flooring. It was a powerful thrill to see something I’d imagined turned into reality; it’s almost like deja vu, like walking into a fantasy.

Making a movie is a collaborative process that involves constant compromises among artists. The director is in charge, but the screenwriter, cinematographer, actors and designers bring their own visions to the project. Even for directors who are true auteurs, the final product is much more than a single person’s vision.

What a relief, then, to get back to my desk after my Hollywood adventure. There weren’t any movie stars and no one was adjusting the line of my jacket, but I was in charge. Master of my own fictional universe, with absolute authority over my characters, my settings and my plot. That’s the novelist’s privilege, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

I’ll be giving away paperbacks and DVDs of HIGH CRIMES between now and March 1. Subscribe to the newsletter, “like” the Facebook fan page, and follow me on Twitter for chances to win!

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