Interview with NYT Bestseller Douglas E Richards
I sat down with New York Times Bestselling Author Douglas E Richards and discussed plotting, research, and the madness of getting stuck in the midst of a novel.
About Douglas:
Douglas E. Richards has been widely praised for his ability to weave action, suspense, and science into riveting novels that straddle the thriller and science fiction genres. He is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of WIRED, its sequel, AMPED, THE CURE, MIND'S EYE, QUANTUM LENS, and six critically acclaimed middle-grade adventures enjoyed by kids and adults alike.
A former biotech executive, Douglas earned a BS in microbiology from the Ohio State University, a master's degree in genetic engineering from the University of Wisconsin (where he engineered mutant viruses now named after him), and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
The author currently lives in San Diego, California, with his wife, two children, and two dogs. You can find out more about his novels by visiting his website.
Full Transcript:
Alessandra: I'm Alessandra Torre and I'm here today with Douglas E. Richards. He's a New York times bestselling author of nine adult novels as well as six critically acclaimed middle-grades adventures. Douglas writes near future science fiction thriller. So it's a different genre than me, I'm a romance and suspense author, but writing is writing and I'm really excited to have him here today. Douglas, thank you so much for coming and giving us your wisdom on writing.
Douglas: Thanks for inviting me.
Alessandra: Because I think that's what Alessandra Ink is all about, helping aspiring authors with their first book or current authors who are wanting to build their craft. So you've spoken before about plotting being the hardest part of your writing. When you start page one of your novel, any novel; do you have a skeleton outline in place or is it just a general thought in mind of what you want to base your story on? Can you walk us through your process when you first start your book?
Douglas: It's pretty brutal. And for me, yeah, the plot is really critical because I write, you know, near future science fiction thriller, so I try to extrapolate current technology trends. So there's a ton of research involved, you know, I try to get it as accurate as I can, you know, kind of where the technology is leading us and all the different implications good and bad. And you know, it's always a double edged sword, no matter how good something seems like, why wouldn't it be amazing if we could do X, Y, or Z? You know, there's always issues surrounding it. Just like, you know, Facebook is amazing, but Facebook is also dangerous if you know, people use it, you know, to organize violence or whatever. And in terms of, you know, I feel like that is my competitive advantage or what I bring to the table, what my readers are really interested in is my plots. You know, I try to make them fast paced, a lot of food for thought inside and a lot of twists and turns and stuff like that. So, that's kind of, you know, what I think is my strong suit. And so, I really stress over them and it's really... it is a nightmare. But when I started, I started out spending a couple of months just researching. I subscribed to half a dozen signs magazines.
I'm constantly scouring the web looking at trends and technologies and, you know, what's new in neuroscience, what's new in quantum computing, you know, whatever it is. And I'll just keep on doing that until I feel like there's enough material in a certain area that I can mind for a novel. And you know, it sometimes takes me, you know, one novel I wrote about neuro that had to do with neuroscience, I thought I was going to write about drones because drones are becoming so popular. They're shrinking in size. You know, what, if you had a drone that was literally the size of a fly, you know, you could use that for spying, you could flying into the engine of a 740. So I thought I was going to write about that, but it just never really clicked, so I wrote a novel about neuroscience and use that as part of the plot. But anyway, so I'll spend a long time. And then when I feel like I've got the right technological premise, you know, I'll try to figure out kind of the basic idea of where I want to go, but that's about it. And then I just kind of started.
Alessandra: So you don't really do an outline at all, you just sort of figure out what you want the story to be about, and then just start writing?
Douglas: Right. And from my reading, and you may be different, but from my reading of, you know, dozens and dozens of authors who are very, very famous and, you know, like Stephen King, you know, kind of wings it... but I think what I found, and I think what, you know, if I'm speaking to new authors who are trying this for the first time, you know, when I first did it, I thought, yeah, you can outline everything. You could just put it all on file cards and, you know, every single chapter plotted out perfectly, and then you just have to fill in the blanks, but it doesn't work that way in practice at all, because it's an evolving process. And you introduce characters, you know, as you're flushing it out that you didn't even though we're going to be introduced. And then later you say, wow, I really liked this character and I can use him somewhere else or her somewhere else. And then like you think you have a great plot twist, and then you get there and you realize, oh, I forgot about this, it won't work, you know, because of these five reasons. And so, you just have to... and it's scary. It's super scary, but I don't think there's any other way, because I think it's, you know, I can't imagine having a whole novel plotted out before you started.
Alessandra: Once you've finished your first draft, what are your next steps and how much rewriting do you do?
Douglas: You know, I think for every paragraph you're writing, you probably, you know, every paragraph you publish, you probably have written five. I mean, for me, it's, it's really stop and go and start and stop, so I find that and this is another more advice I give for new authors. Just let yourself go. I mean, if you try to go really slowly through a scene and get it perfect and make sure the grammar is all right, and everything is, you know, you really polish the heck out of it. I think you're losing something. I think when I write my best is when I'm totally on self-conscious when I'm just racing through a scene as fast as I can. Not worrying about grammar, punctuation, just getting it all out there, and being in the flow, and being in the scene because self-consciousness is the enemy of good writing. And second guessing yourself, and, you know, oh my God, is this sentence, did I word that properly. You can always come back and polish.
Now I have a tendency lately. I've been falling into that trap where I try to polish my sentences too much and it's hurting me. I mean, I really have to get back to basically of just letting it all flow, you know, kind of, it's not a great term in vomiting on the page and then cleaning up afterwards. But for me, it's like start and stop, so I'll write some, then I'll polish it mainly because I don't know where to go next.
Alessandra: Yeah. To kill time while your brain catches up, yeah.
Douglas: The other thing is, it's smart to kind of go back and polish what you wrote the day before, just because, you know, I used to talk, you know, big assemblies full of kids you know, who were reading my middle grade books. And a lot of schools and they'd invite me, and I would say, you know, I play tennis. I go out on the tennis court. I don't just start the match the first second. I warm up for 10 minutes, you know, I hit the ball and warm up, and then I started the match. So the same kind of thing, you know, go back over your old writing, get into the flow again, you know, before you forge ahead, I think is helpful too.
Alessandra: I read a book writing in the dark. It talks about how to write without an outline and how he said it, which was interesting. He suggested at the beginning of each writing session, going back and reading the chapter before that you wrote, you know, the last couple of paragraphs, whatever. And he said, it was like, sort of gaining momentum, you know, like running up a hill, so that then, you know, that gives you a running start and then you can just launch right into, you know, the fresh new content and I liked that
Douglas: Just to be clear, when I say, you know, I don't really have an outline, I mean, that's not really true. I mean, I don't know what the whole entire novel would be that, but it's kind of like in pieces. Like I'll start out and I'll kind of get a sense of what I want the first, you know, five or 10 chapters, and I'll try to map them out as best I can. And maybe I'll have an overarching sense of where I think the book is going to be going. So there is, I mean, there's structural along the way, and then I'll stop and it could be for weeks at a time. And I won't continue until I'm convinced I'm on the right path. And it's very, very stressful. I mean, lately, I have never figured out the ending of my novels before I'm 60 or 70% of the way through, and it's terrifying.
And every time that I'm not going to figure it out this time and I won't continue because I refuse to write a book that I don't think my fans are going to love. So I mean, sometimes it'll be three weeks where I'm just in a dead stop. You know, I go outside, I sit on a lawn chair and stare into space for hours at a time, or, you know, lie down on the floor, closing my eyes, kind of sensory deprivation, trying to figure out the plot. And you know, then it's always magically, somehow I have the Eureka moment and the twist, or the main plot point comes to me. And you'd be surprised because I've always been able to finish and I've always been satisfied with the product. But every time I'm convinced that I can't do it this time and I'm throwing my computer through the window and I'm screaming, I mean, I'm a giant mess. And then I tell my wife, I can't do it, there's no way to finish this novel. And she says, yeah, you say that every time and you're going to figure it out. And I know this time is different this time it's impossible, and I always have, so, but it's a terrifying process.
Alessandra: I'm going to move into the lightning round, which is I'll just ask you a question and you can just one word or one sentence answer if you want to compound on it by all means, but it's meant to be short and sweet. What is your biggest weakness as a writer?
Douglas: I think right now just not letting myself go and not being more self-conscious than I should be.
Alessandra: What is your biggest strength; pantser or an outliner?
Douglas: Both. I mean, I outline when I can, I try to get, you know, as much structure as I can. But you know, I do a lot of times just kind of figure it out as I go.
Alessandra: How many days a week do you write?
Douglas: Pretty much every day. I mean, I find that I have to, I mean, I have to be completely immersed. If I take off four days, I don't even know; it's like I never... I mean, it's like, I didn't even write it before. It just takes a long time to get back into it.
Alessandra: And how many words do you typically write in a normal day of writing?
Douglas: Yeah, I really don't know because there is no normal day because sometimes I'll write five, 6,000 words really fast, and then some days, you know, I'll go three weeks at a time, where I can't figure out the plot and I'll stop, so I'll stop short. But, you know, basically once I begin a book, it usually takes about four months for me to finish it. And my books tend to be about 110 hundred 20,000 words. You know, I don't waste time, probably because I'm not trying to be Hemingway. I mean, I'm just trying to write as clean, you know, I'm trying to get out of my own way. I'm not flowery, you know, I try to be as straightforward. I try to be as clean as I possibly can, so that readers don't even know that they're reading. I'm hoping they're immersed in the plot, and you know, so again, I'm very straightforward.
Alessandra: Well, wonderful. Thank you so much for chatting with us today. I really appreciate it, and I really appreciate your insights so interesting to see your process. And I love hearing about a different genre other than my own.
Douglas: Fantastic. Thank you.
