In Between The Sheets
with our favorite authors
Introducing a new home for our authors, In Between The Sheets.
So many people love going behind the scenes to get to know their favorite writers a little better. A few months ago, A.F. Brady and I spent the day at the Mandarin Oriental New York enjoying the hotel! She even left a personally autographed copy of her book for the next guest.
So many people love going behind the scenes to get to know their favorite writers a little better. A few months ago, A.F. Brady and I spent the day at the Mandarin Oriental New York enjoying the hotel! She even left a personally autographed copy of her book for the next guest.
A.F. Brady, author of The Blind and Once A Liar
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In Between the Sheets with Matt Coyle author of Wrong Light
Nominated for the "Lefty" Award
Matt Coyle launching his book and celebrating our joint birthdays at the Dream Inn, Santa Cruz, CA. Dec 15 2018. He might just have to meet up next year the cakes were yummy!
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Q: Rick Cahill is a complex character. How did he come about?
A: When I first started writing the book that would become YESTERDAY'S ECHO, Rick was a bit too autobiographical and the tone of the story was too light. When I revised the beginning of the book, a line popped up in my head that would become the opening sentence of the book...and my career. To this day, I don't know where the line came from, other than my subconscious. It was: The first time I saw her, she made me remember and she made me forget.
That sentence unlocked the true essence of the character I knew I needed to write. He desperately wanted to remember the joy he'd once felt and wanted even more desperately to forget all the pain he's felt since that joy. Once I had that I knew I was writing a much darker character with more depth than the one in my first draft.
Q: Talk about your writing process. Has it changed over the course of writing five books?
A: In mystery writing, probably all writing, there are people who meticulously plan their books before they begin writing and those who get an idea and just start running with it: Outliners and Pantsers (writing by the seat of your pants), or as I've always known them, Blank Pagers (a hat tip to Raymond Chandler who spoke of staring at a blank page in his typewriter each day before he began writing). In the beginning I was a hybrid of both, but heavily favoring the Blank Pager side. I'd have a very skeletal outline with a beginning, an ending, and a few plot points along the way. I have since devolved into a pure Blank Pager. I have a beginning, an inciting incident, and a vague idea of an ending and then I just start running. In this process, like the sentence described in the question above, ideas pop up in my head which I add to the story. It may be a new character I hadn't thought of, a line of dialog that may not quite fit, or a plot twist that doesn't make any sense. Most of the time I don't yet know their significance, but I leave them in the story. I call this dropping anchors. My subconscious is telling me that there is something in these tidbits that will lead me to the real story I'm supposed to be telling. Sometimes my subconscious is just playing tricks on me and I have to go back in revision and pull up anchors. However, the vast majority of the time the anchors open up more interesting subplots in the story and reveal the true thread of the story. It's a crazy way to write, but I've learned to trust the process.
Q: Do you ever get writer's block? If so, how do you deal with it?
A: I'm frequently blocked, but choose not to acknowledge it. Often, it's just a matter of having to sit in the chair long enough for ideas to percolate. Some days what begin as "blocked" days become the most productive where my fingers on the keyboard can't keep up with the ideas in my brain. However, there are times when I feel truly blocked about a scene I'm trying to write. When that happens, I jump ahead and write a scene I know I'll have to write later in the book, so I end the day with having accomplished something. Knowing what's needed ahead may sound contrary to my blank page process, but the more you write the book, the more entire story lays out ahead for you. If I'm blocked near the end of the book and I have no other scenes formulated in my head, I force myself to write something, no matter how awful or unconnected to the foundation I've laid up to that point. That's why there's revision.
A: When I first started writing the book that would become YESTERDAY'S ECHO, Rick was a bit too autobiographical and the tone of the story was too light. When I revised the beginning of the book, a line popped up in my head that would become the opening sentence of the book...and my career. To this day, I don't know where the line came from, other than my subconscious. It was: The first time I saw her, she made me remember and she made me forget.
That sentence unlocked the true essence of the character I knew I needed to write. He desperately wanted to remember the joy he'd once felt and wanted even more desperately to forget all the pain he's felt since that joy. Once I had that I knew I was writing a much darker character with more depth than the one in my first draft.
Q: Talk about your writing process. Has it changed over the course of writing five books?
A: In mystery writing, probably all writing, there are people who meticulously plan their books before they begin writing and those who get an idea and just start running with it: Outliners and Pantsers (writing by the seat of your pants), or as I've always known them, Blank Pagers (a hat tip to Raymond Chandler who spoke of staring at a blank page in his typewriter each day before he began writing). In the beginning I was a hybrid of both, but heavily favoring the Blank Pager side. I'd have a very skeletal outline with a beginning, an ending, and a few plot points along the way. I have since devolved into a pure Blank Pager. I have a beginning, an inciting incident, and a vague idea of an ending and then I just start running. In this process, like the sentence described in the question above, ideas pop up in my head which I add to the story. It may be a new character I hadn't thought of, a line of dialog that may not quite fit, or a plot twist that doesn't make any sense. Most of the time I don't yet know their significance, but I leave them in the story. I call this dropping anchors. My subconscious is telling me that there is something in these tidbits that will lead me to the real story I'm supposed to be telling. Sometimes my subconscious is just playing tricks on me and I have to go back in revision and pull up anchors. However, the vast majority of the time the anchors open up more interesting subplots in the story and reveal the true thread of the story. It's a crazy way to write, but I've learned to trust the process.
Q: Do you ever get writer's block? If so, how do you deal with it?
A: I'm frequently blocked, but choose not to acknowledge it. Often, it's just a matter of having to sit in the chair long enough for ideas to percolate. Some days what begin as "blocked" days become the most productive where my fingers on the keyboard can't keep up with the ideas in my brain. However, there are times when I feel truly blocked about a scene I'm trying to write. When that happens, I jump ahead and write a scene I know I'll have to write later in the book, so I end the day with having accomplished something. Knowing what's needed ahead may sound contrary to my blank page process, but the more you write the book, the more entire story lays out ahead for you. If I'm blocked near the end of the book and I have no other scenes formulated in my head, I force myself to write something, no matter how awful or unconnected to the foundation I've laid up to that point. That's why there's revision.